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Music Industry scores the closing of www.lyrics.ch
Hasdi R Hashim
writes "The searchable
lyrics site has been
shut down by local authorities today believe it or not.
Once again, the big megalomaniac company goes after
non-profit little fish." With over a million hits a day,
one would think the music industry would know better than
to irritate that many consumers.
Why would they want to shut it down. It wouldn't seem to me that showing the lyrics to songs would hurt the music industry in any way.
Anyone wish to creat a public NYtimes account for slashdotters? Akin to the cyberpunks/punk imac virtual floppy site account...
First they shut down that guitar chords site, then they try to squash the Rio, now this. What's next, will the cddb go away because it has the names of the songs too? When the hell will it stop?
I know that most people will see this as the usual foxing from a big company to a small non-profit site but after all who wrote the lyrics has intellectual property over them and should be able to decide if they are to be disseminated or not.
Picture this scenario: you buy an audio-book and transcribe it and publish it on the web: surely you would be sued, because even if you typed out the words yourself, the book is the work of the writer who did not authorize this 'treatment'.
Somebody might object that in case of music, the primary product is a 'song' and not its lyrics, but let me ask you this: how big of a role do lyrics play in you liking a song ? Would you still love 'Imagine', for example, as much if the lyrics were not there ?
I don't think a consensus is reachable on this subject, but it will be interesting to see what people think.
By the way, how does the legislation regard transcripts of movies and/or tv shows ? It would be interesting to know if there's anything similar in that.
This is ridiculous. This sort of thing happened to the Online Guitar Archive a while back. I don't see how posting lyrics makes publishing companies lose money at all.
I, for one, am never buying CD's ever again.
Yay for MP3s.
These fascists are the same ones that shut down the guitar chords repository site.
This sort of thing happened to the Online Guitar Archive a while back. I don't see how posting lyrics makes publishing companies lose money at all.
I, for one, am never buying CD's ever again.
Yay for MP3s.
Say,
Does the Harry Fox Agency and Polygram have a website or email address to handle questions / complaints ?
Any thought to protesting / boycotting Polygram distributed records ? (PGD - lots of bands are distributed under those goons. )
i would imagine the issue is pretty simple -- the site did not have the right to publish the lyrics.
leagally, the record companies can do this. but as others have said, it will hurt them in the long run.
it seems that everyone is getting pretty tired of the same old power structures, whether software, music or politics.
protest! don't buy new cd's, only used, and from the local mom&pop cdrom store...
WHY GOD? WHY!?!?! Lyrics.ch helped make the Internet livable! GOD DAMN YOU ALL!!
I've read a lot of "gee, that was dumb for them to do," posts here.
This new technology is going to put those parasitical leaches out of business, and they know it. What does a record company do, in exchange for the lion's share of the profits? Nothing. They control distribution. If you're in a band, and you want people to hear your work, you've got to pay the juice to the record companies. Is it any surprise that it's such a popular business for mobsters?
They are terrified of direct artist to fan electronic distribution, in any form. Text, sound, whatever. They also realze that they don't have any allies. Musicians like the beastie boys and public enemy want to cut them out. The fans sure as hell want to cut them out. And since they're slow, inefficient, and expensive, it looks like they're probably going to get cut out.
They're going to thrash around and strike out at everyone they can as they go down. You can count on it. This will be an extremely ugly fight.
www.polygram.com
But no email contact anywhere to be found. Phone info is here, though. Let em know how you feel about this.
-------------------------------------
Corporate Communications Contacts:
Universal Music Group:
Bob Bernstein (818)777-0589
PolyGram:
Dawn Bridges (212)333-8357
Amanda Conroy 011-44-171-747-4217
PolyGram Filmed Entertainment:
Grace Salafia (310)777-3158
Universal Studios:
Iris Gelt (818)777-9775
Seagram:
Ray Boyce (212)572-7172
Seagram Investor Relations:
http://www.seagram.com/company_info/index.html
You might want to read the article first and then check www.nmpa.org website, the organization that is responsible for this.
hasdi at bigfoot dot com
Goddamn! I loved the international lyrics server.
Did the guy running the lyrics server give anyone else a copy of all the lyrics?
Come guys! Let's file a class action law suit -- they're artificially eliminating (through threats) legal, non-profit services that were available to us and would be available to us but for their sheer arrogance.
hasdi at bigfoot dot com
It's time for a protest. Let's stop buying CD. Just pirate them!
clientservice@harryfox.com
^^^ email for the company who did it.
The lyrics server WAS NOT Open Source so it was crap!
Email sent to these guys:
Date: Tue, 19 Jan 1999 12:59:42 -0800 (PST)
From: Greg Herlein
To: clientservice@harryfox.com
Subject: Booooo!
I find it amazing that you would press legal charges against the
"International Lyrics Server" for allowing folks to post their
own translations of song lyrics onto the web.
How is it that your clients are losing money? Do you offer a
similar service? If I want the words to a song of one of your
clients, can I even buy those words? I'm not talking sheet music
- just lyrics. That's all that was on the web anyway. Please
don't tell me you're losing money if you don't even have a means
of selling the same thing. Besides, if it's simple folks posting
their interpretation/trasncription of the lyrics, how is that a
violation of your copyrights? Please!
I never used the site, and it doesn't affect me at all that they
are no longer there... but it just made me snap when I rad the
article about it. You guys are weilding a heavy hand and
swatting at a little guy who didn't harm you and wasn't taking
away from your revenue. As a little guy myself, it makes me mad.
Let me leave you with a simple thought: karma. You will get
yours, eventually. Nature has a way of making that happen.
Greg Herlein
Principal Engineer,
Herlein Engineering
That's NOT your song! Quit it!
For a copyright to be enforceable, courts (at least in the US) have determined that the copyright holder must exercise diligence in protecting and enforcing the copyright. Lawyers tend to go to the extreme, because arguments in courts tend to work in the extreme (You failed to enforce your copyright when you let www.lyrics.ch publish the song, how can you now sue me for singing it better than the original and making it a top hit without paying you or the author a dime.) Expect it to get worse, before...Hell, it ain't gonna get better.
The Internet is beginning to become stupid thanks to big companies. How about a new internet... No comercial entities are welcome!
Say I'm a songwriter (not a performer) and I write a popular song. How can I make money from it? If the lyrics, sheet music, and various performers's MP3s are available for free, how can I survive?
Wait 20 years and sell out to Nike or Burger King?
The "old ways" of supporting artists are crumbleing due to technology, but I don't see what is replacing the payment mechanism.
STOP THEM NOW!
One day theses goons will shutdown sites like
www.altavista.com just for showing bands name.
Provided the admins of lyrics.ch want to fight this in court. We should all rally behind them and send a donation to help fight the power! If you buy the cd you should have the rights to see what lyrics are said. Just as you have the right to make "backups" of your software. The fact that a lot of the lyrics that were submitted by users often had words that were incorrect. Its just another case of a Big company picking on the little site. One of these days the little people will fight back. Thank God for hackers/crackers...
I'll sure miss lyrichs.ch they should have moved to a country where the us has no say and that laws are funked up. =]
-w3rd
Time to start a petition again. If they think people were angry before, wait until this gets around. Maybe 100,000 people telling them so will make them think twice. I see they have an email address clientservice@harryfox.com. Hmmm
They want a war, give em one! They have sites and systems. They better DAMN well be secure. Let the fun begin!
If/when the database becomes available again, let's mirror it widely, copy it so much they couldn't possibly remove every trace. Make it not worth their while to try to take it down.
/. some time ago.
The Free Software community has a lot of stability because it's not dependent on a weak link. Let's apply the same approach to our data.
Also, if we store our data in such a way as to defy isolation, it will cause "them" great difficulty in restricting it. For example, what if the data was stored in a RAID-like manner across multiple servers? What if OURDB://a.server/key/ referred to data where every even bit is on six servers, and every odd bit is on six other servers? You pick the server from each set closest to you, grab the data, and mix it locally. They can't claim any one of the twelve servers has a copy of their copyrighted material. The server that tells the client where to get the data doesn't have a copy of it. The client won't have a copy until it assembles it, and can forget about it whenever it wants. It's also not encryption.
I don't claim this is entirely my idea. I was thinking of the widdling/chaffing algorythem mentioned on
Dammit! I loved this site too.
And bookmarked it only as a handy
reference for whenever I felt like
singing along with a song.!!
What is WRONG with these people?!
If we want to establish net distribution as a viable alternative, we need to make someone into a star. As soon as one person becomes a household name and starts making money from home made cd's and concert appreances, the paradigm will have officially shifted.
We should organize a contest to select the best free mp3 out there. Then we should all try to push the hell out of them, calling radio stations, asking for airplay, etc.
It should be like the old star search tv show. We should try to find musicians -- like guys from the beastie boys and public enemy -- to act as judges, to lend the thing some credibility. We should try to make winning it a big deal, so that the bands that are currently scraping around for record deals will want to put some resources into the contest.
Once someone breaks big, without selling any of their iprop to a record company weasel, things will be forever changed.
I'm going to do what little I can to ensure some financial incentive for the site to be reopened. I work as a broadcast DJ and have worked for several broadcast companies. A few of the more common listener questions are: "What song has ______ in it?", "Who sings ______?", and "Which album did _____ sing _____ ?" For all of these answers, I would turn to my laptop and hit the www.lyrics.ch site (and a few others) and give the listener their answer. I'd be willing to say that 9 times out of 10, the listener most likely went out and purchased that album. Several contacted me afterwards thanking me for the help and to let me know that they either liked or hated the rest of the album. I also found such sites invaluable when searching for songs to fit a particular event. Many times it would dig up some oldies that I had completely forgotten about. These songs WOULD NOT have aired if I didn't stumble across their lyrics on the site. I have written (on company letterhead) to ASCAP, BMI, SESAC, and Harry Fox Co. expressing my displeasure with their decision. If anything, these companies should buy out the guy and host their own free server, adding the lyrics as albums are released, possibly even before to encourage sales. For now, when a listener asks any of the above questions, I reply that the music companies prohibit the free dissemination of lyrics, and because of copyright infringement, I'm unable to help them. This definitely rubs them the wrong way, and I hope it'll make some difference. I at least will have the satisfaction knowing that at least 10-20 albums won't be sold a week because people aren't able to get the info.
..is go into politics and stop big companies using their money to "lobby" (ie. bribe) copyright laws
/. effect in elections...
which make this kind of things possible.
V.
PS. How about
Harry Fox Agency
711 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Tel: (212) 370-5330
Fax: (212) 953-2384
January 19th, 1999
To Whom it May Concern:
I wish to make your agency aware of the disappointment and outrage felt by myself and others, as consumers in the Music Industry, because of the manner in which you have dealt with Pascal de Vries' Internet web site, "www.lyrics.ch". His voluntary and generous contributions in providing a host for community-based lyrics exchange have been enjoyed by thousands of people every day.
Whether or not you were directly involved in Pascal de Vries' arrest and the confiscation of his web servers, your agency has become an enemy to good will and the principles of freedom - particularly as seen by the citizens of the Internet. The Internet-based reference to thousands of popular songs hosted by de Vries is already missed, and I feel that I must inform you that your agency, and those companies that it represents, will be significantly impacted because of the oppressive image you have created.
The Internet is a new medium to the Music Industry, and we realize that you are struggling to harness its amazing distribution and community potential. However, we, as that potential community, ask that you reconsider the self-destructive course you are embarking on.
Copyright laws have protected individuals and businesses from the theft of their creativity; however, those laws have never, nor will ever, be able to prevent a friend from sharing that creativity with another friend. As you are aware, it is distinctly counter-productive for an artist to prevent that free form of marketing from occurring. Because the Internet has broken the barrier in linking a geographically enormous circle of friends into a single, instantaneous network, the sharing of information has recently been the focus of much debate. Our cause is not to steal the creativity of others, nor is it to strip the artist from his well-deserved royalty. Our cause is only this: Let us share with our friends.
If you understand our plea, you will understand our outrage. If you understand our outrage, you will understand us. If you understand us, you will see it is in the best interest of your agency and the Internet community to work together. Otherwise, your actions will continue to support the entirely illegal and underground distribution of copyrighted music over the Internet, and you will continue to encourage others, like myself, to boycott the industry as a whole.
Sincerely,
Duane Johnson
I bet next, the CDDB archive list will
get hosed because its (C) of the song titles/album names....
I wish the y2k would just disable all lawyers, and not computers
-CB
The license for songs usually says something along the lines of 'you can't store or reproduce...'
MY GOD. I remember the lyrics to lots of songs! They are 'stored' in my memory. I hope they don't sue me!
Copyrighting a performance is one thing. Using legal action against someone because they offer, for free, what you can get if you listen to the radio, also free, is crap.
Barf.
Just to piss em off too, im gona
download/burn 10000's of mp3s now!
But it will be all stuff that I wont buy anyway
because shops dont carry everything.
If the govt had a clue, they would legalize all drugs and that would save the economy TRILLIONS of $$$ in lost money. I mean then people wouldnt need to spend $$ on drugs, they would get it nearly free and they would have it left to buy real stuff, that would SPARK up the economy!!!
Govt's have no clue! they are chicken shit , white christian right wing extremist nazi loving fukers
This is what we get for using information services that arn't open and dont allow us to dowload the data enmass.
Just look at cddb.
It's sad.
I would like to send my letter(s) to the appropriate heads of departments at the Harry Fox Agency and PolyGram, so that they (my letters) will not be sifted through the corporate ladder and ignored. Does anyone have a contact address to the appropriate people within:
PolyGram Holding Inc.
825 8th Avenue
New York, NY 10019
US
Harry Fox Agency
711 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
US
Thanks,
Duane Johnson
duane_johnson at canada.com
Use:
anonymous/anonymous
worked for me.
What next?
Public (freeware) software archives being shutdown because they pose a threat to the profits of the bg commercial companies?
This sucks! They are totally in the right! This is gonna be a landmark case, esp. on the subject of what the ISP is accountable for. We (ISP's) _are_ nothing more than package carriers...
Learn more at the National Alliance.
...if they want to do something against the music-publishers... ask them to support lyrics.ch :-)). so we can see what they really think about the industrie!
Okay I know that the words were quoted by the fellow submitting the article, but I have yet to see a /. article side with big business on anything.
The music industry is well within their rights here. The lyrics were copyrighted, and this fellow reproduced them online without permission. Why not just take all of the New York Times best sellers and scan them into a web site?
The vocal minority here loves to whine and cry about the music industry. Yes I think that the industry is being a bunch of pricks with MP3 but they are totally right in what they did in shutting down this web site. They are equally right in shutting down any sites offering MP3's of copyrighted works without permission.
"Did I just hear you tapping the rhythm of that song with your pencil? That's $15, pal! Cough it up!"
That was a dramatization. Had this been an actual case, the music industry would have confiscated your pencil and brought you to court for plagiarism and copyright infringement. This has been a test of the Emergency Music Industry Anti-Infringement System. Thank you, and enjoy the rest of your day.
;oP
As the article stated, these lyrics were submitted by individual users, they should have to check each and everyone, to make sure it verbatim and thusly violating the copyright.
:(
PS. Harry Fox Agency was also responsible for shutting OLGA
I wish there was something we all could do, to protect ourselves from the foolish wrath of the RIAA and Harry Fox Agency.
Fuck Ajit Pai
No reasonably thinking person can bring up any reasons for the shutdown of this site, or other sites like those carrying legacy emulation games, except for "its the law, accept it or we will totally destroy your life, because we have to power to".
These continuing fascist actions by the recording and software industry make sure that i don't lose any sleep at all over mp3's and so-called pirated software. The moment it dies i'll spit on its corpse, while it still lives i spit in its face.
Marx was right with his historical materialism, and i hope the music and software industry as we know it today will be replaced by the people with the more superior form of production, open source and mp3, before it grows into even more of an opressing monstrosity than it is today.
Preserve the power on your side - F242
Questions about HFA or a
license request?
Contact the Client Services
Department at
clientservice@harryfox.com
--Robin Miller
This is a truly sad day. I remember back in '91 writing an FTP interface to the old lyrics archive at cs.uwp.edu in VMS DCL to allow Indiana University students to search and download files there. It brings back a lot of memories for me. I can't believe the lyrics archive is gone.
The copyright protection racket industry could be sowing the seeds of its own doom with this, just as the Stamp Tax etc spelled the doom of British authority in colonial America. You can only push so hard against people before they being pushing back. People who would have gladly kept paying $15 dollars for CD's and otherwise gone on opposing unauthorized music reproduction for profit are going to start thinking twice after enough things like this. The music industry is just alienating their customers.
that's cypherpunk(s)
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
If you're going to send a letter like this, please at least run it through a spelling checker first? A grammar checker wouldn't hurt either. ("...when I rad the article..." ???) I'm all for writing, but please let's make make a good impression.
...phil
"For a list of the ways which technology has failed to improve our quality of life, press 3."
Posted by Mephie:
That is sick. Sick sick sick.
I love it.
--Mephie
Posted by Mr. Fingers:
Here's what I sent to the bozos at HFA. At least if it's posted here, someone might read it.
You've done it again. First OLGA, now Lyrics.ch.
I am angered and dismayed at this continuation of strong-armed tactics that don't make any sense. While I can't hope to contest the legal grounds for what you did, I fail to see what financial or moral justification would warrent this action.
Tonight I tried to help out my sister-in-law who was trying to find a good song about transportation that her 8 year-old daughter could sing for a school project. I fired up my web browser and went to the International Lyrics Server to begin the search. Gone.
I also frequented the lyrics server on a regular basis for both personal and business reasons. As the music director for a wedding band, it provided a consistently reliable resource for obtaining lyrics for new songs.
Or how about workgroup trivia: "Now what was that song about 'ditty wa ditty'?" Or "Anyone know what band played the song we just hear on the radio?" Oh yeah. That was it! (click here to buy CD -- NOT!)
Now, where do I go? You force me to hunt down sheet music, buy CDs where I may or may not find printed lyrics, or spend an hour trying to decipher the singers vocals.
These are all pay-for-use activities, meaning the publisher and lyricist get their due, but it's way less convenient for me than doing a simple web search on a database. What kind of marketing strategy is that?
The recording industry offers no alternative to the lyrics server. If I could pay and subscribe to a service that allowed me to call up lyrics, I'd consider it in a moment.
The fact of the matter is, you and the industry appear to be striking out at what you interperet as threatening. But since you haven't planned how to exploit the lyrics marketplace, giving me an option up to the standards of convenience and cost us Internet users have come to expect, you've done nothing but alienate me as a happy, faithful music consumer.
In fact, I am moved to more aggressively find other, less legal means of obtaining music and lyrics at the expense of the musicians whose rights you aim to protect.
As I stated in a previous email message to you about OLGA, you could take a lesson from other industries who have learned that providing free content and products or loss leaders drums up interest and activity. It's good customer service and it brings those customers back to the table for more. Don't you get it? You and your artists win!
I imagine this will all shake out in the next year or two with some old and new industry players who actually get the power of the Internet providing downloadable music, lyrics, and valuable ancillary information. That's prime time! Your outdated business model is not ready for that, and you have outlived your usefulness to me and the artists your represent.
I smile to myself as I think forward, post-milleneum, to an article headline in the online NY Times... "Harry Fox Agency forced to declare bancruptcy. They just didn't get it."
cyberpunks worked last time I tried, but not this time. Now however cyberpunk (no s) works. Gotta try both on most sites, and if neither works create one.
Granted swiss law is different from US law, but I'm confused. They seised comptuers. Then they ordered the passwords given up.
Now US law gives me the right to protect myself against this attacks, and if revealing a password would mean testifing against me I plead the fifth. (Which would at least require a seperate court order with lawyers involved. Not sure the above would protect me, but at the very least I wouldn't have given up my passwords this easially.
I'm surprized at the level of most comments here. Get a clue: the world does not owe you everything you want on a gold platter (silver isn't good enough for spioled brats like you, is it?)
I'll certianly agree that many of the things the music recording industry does are not good for them, but they have a right to do things as they want to. Now if you want to go through all the lyrics on that server and remove the ones without copywright permission, great. If they own the copyright you need to obey the laws about distributing them. These laws are not well defined, and those who are going against them should expect some pain in getting them defined.
Still, the artist who make songs (not just lyrics) dserve a chance to earn a living doing so. If they feel (forget about if they are right, that isn't at issue) that free access to their lyrics is a loss for them, they have the right to stop distribution of them. If they want to be a small fish in the worlds sea, they have a right to make their creation hard to get at. Likewise the companies have a right to earn money for their creation.
Remember this doesn't deal with if their actions are good or bad for them. They have a right to do it, and in fact the law is tricky enough that they probably have to stop distribution. Live with it, not everything will go your way. They have a point of view, and it is valid. It doesn't have to be right, but nobody is willing to admit their point of view has any merits, which it does.
Is there an argument for the fact that many, if not all of the lyrics submitted could have been created from listening to public performances (radio) of the song? At that point, they are not "copying" anything, they are simply reporting what they heard on the PUBLIC airways.
How is this different than a reporter typing up the transcript from a speech given at a public event or a news journalist repeating a statement made by a public official on the sidewalk?
If someone typed up the lyrics word for word from the inside of a CD Jewel case that's one thing, but I think there is an argument for the other.
Unfortunately, there isn't enough money in the world to fight them on this.
If you can read this message, your threshold is too low.
Yeah.. class action wouldn't work. Wrong approach. It would have to be a constitutional issue here in the States. Some sort of free speech issue I would guess. I think that posting peoples interpretation of the lyrics should be legal. On the other hand, many albums include lyrics. Should it then be illegal to post those lyrics on the net? I don't think it should, since the music industry does not sell it's lyrics, they are simply a part of the song, and knowing them may help people have a better appreciation for the work of the artists involved. It doesn't seem to cause any harm whatsoever to the music industry or the artists themselves. As long as the lyrics are properly attributed to the artist (and possibly distributor too), there shouldn't be any problem with making them available on the net. Either way, it doesn't help the guys in Switzerland. They have their own crappy laws to deal with.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I like it. At least it's something. I don't expect it to influence them. They tend to get mad rather than get smart, but money is what gets their attention, so you're on the right track. We need publicity, and a way to inform the public and combat the deceptions that the RIAA spews.
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I hope that was sarcasm. People scare me sometimes :)
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
Corporations don't have rights. Individuals do.
Life's a lot like money-- you spend it, then it's gone. Spend wisely.
Beyond that, they should be required to prove that the defendants KNEW the lyrics were copied rather than transcribed. Otherwise, the defendant is just another victim.
Everytime the RIAA does that,
their favorite reason is that without profit incentive, musicians won't
be willing to make recordings.
Damnit, I'm going to quit playing right now. I just can't stand all of my multi million dollar CD's getting pirated!!! I'm losing millions of dollars here by pirates!!!!!
In fact not only am I going to quit making CD's, I'm going to quit even listening to music!!!
Like are there any musicians who actually don't lose millions of dollars in CD sales because their lyrics are getting pirated?!?!?!?!
One problem with your argument is that you're saying that the artist can complain about their lyrics being reprinted. Well, if you look closer at the article, it wasn't the ARTISTS who did this, but the RECORD COMPANIES.
So, a good question here is wether the artists actually cared, or if it's the record companies just doing it on their own? After all, record companies have recently forced artists to remove their own songs from the 'net.
The problem is that only mega-corporations are having their "rights" enforced, and are often enforcing the rights of others, whether they want them enforced or not.
Ever get the feeling that the Music Industry is missing the boat, and they aren't quite realizing that they hold the golden ticket? Maybe it's because for years and years they had one of the premier industries at least in the United States. In order to get your Music played, you HAD to go through the Music Industry. Now, it's completly possible for someone to have a top 10 hit without them. Unfortunatly/Fortunatly the internet is not just a fad. It is not going to go away. This COULD have been an excellent place for the music industry to say. Hey. You are reading the lyrics to Jimi Hendrix's 'Stone Free' (for instance) want to purchase a CD of it? Or, download an mp3? Or something simular? But instead they decide to shut it down.
I do believe that the lyrics belong to whoever wrote them, i.e. 'Intellectual Property' I don't believe however, that the Music Industry has the rights to speak for millions of artists out there who've had their songs posted.
It's not like the Music Industry hasn't made a few bucks off of Compact Discs. I imagine, these days, it costs less than $.50 US to make a cd, jewel case, liner notes included. They still cost around $15 apiece. What a crock.
I DARE anyone to prove (inside or outside of court) that I have any recollection of any password whatsoever. All those confusing letters, numbers, and weird characters.
As soon as I can get the lyrics typed up, and get an email address for whoever runs www.lyrics.ch, I intend to send them all the lyrics for all vocal songs Sacred Soul Records (my record label) has released. Now, granted, SSR may not have top 40 releases (yet), but indie label support is all over the place. It saved the Audionet Jukebox, mp3.com and many other sites that are the future of music distribution. My studio/label is going to be one part of the music industry that adapts and welcomes the new technology as a valid distribution/promotional tool!
(p.s. anyone got an email addy for the guys that run www.lyrics.ch?)
Select 3, or 5. One would be insufficient to really shift the paradigm. Otherwise, agreed, I'm up to help with whatever comes out of this.
They got archive.uwp.edu shut down around 1996.
All that happens is that you get more numerous
and less comprehensive sites distributed
round the Net, which makes them even HARDER
to combat.
I'm with the Web on this one.
Thiiiiiis can'tbehappening....
Argh.
Grrr... damnation. The Thing Ruled.
Why should the music industry give a tuppenny stuff whether they piss off fans. Fans are just cattle. Where are they going to go for music? Sony, EMI, BMG, Seagram or Time Warner. A few extremists may boogie down to KFMF S3Ms and the Free Software Song, but if you like any band or artist who's part of popular culture, you have to tithe to The Man, bend over and take it nicely. And The Man has no incentive to use lubrication.
Because these pigheaded bastards will do anything to either make a buck or make themselves look like assholes - or both. They don't even care what the consequences are.
What's next? The local smalltown no-name band getting busted at a gig because they did a cover of a song?
It's absurd.
-mickey
A link for non-NYTimes types here
This has got to be one of the stupidest things the music industry has done. I've used lyrics.ch on numerous occassions to find songs I've heard on the radio and didn't know the name of so I could buy the album....
Everyone says "complain here, send e-mail here." Yeah right. Be realistic, folks. The music industry is so far in the stone age that they figure anyone using a computer is a minortiy. So of course they ignore your e-mails; they don't give a crap. MP3 is biting them in the ass and it takes them what, five years to figure it out? I was downloading MP3s on a 9600! They're not gonna listen to us with simple text based complaints. So here's my idea. I know a lot of you on slashdot are in college, or at work, or otherwise connected via a pretty big pipe. I think anyone with the bandwidth should forward their entire collection of MP3s to all the customer service e-mails you can find: RIAA, whatever agency is responsible for this travesty, etc. Not only would it be an incredible bitch for whoever's on the receiving end (the Slashdot effect times a thousand, ha!), but it would also, a.) let them know how not to act in the future, and b.) give them some tangible proof of how much love and respect they've fostered in the past by continually pulling this crap. I'm tempted to write a perl script that just crawls around and forwards every MP3 it finds to these guys, complete with some cryptic message about lyrics.ch and OLGA attached. What do you guys think?
I think there is a world market for maybe five personal web logs.
...especially since lots of albums don't usually come with lyrics, or only of a few songs. Who ordered this police raid anyway? If lyrics are not supplied, could you legally put lyrics that are not on any album on a website? I guess you can't, but how could they prove that those are indeed the actual lyrics? Anyway, I definitely see a pattern evolving. The internet is getting less free every day. To keep it free, we should fight back hard.- -------------
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UNIX isn't dead, it just smells funny...
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UNIX isn't dead, it just sme
...so get a clue yourself. It is not the artists who are loosing money, it is the record industry. But the record industry is incredibly filthy rich, and overcharge their customers. Even that is not the issue here. How many times do you see the lyrics of songs on albums at all? In less than half of them. And usually they are not complete, or only a few of the songs come with lyrics written out. This site provided a service nobody else, certainly not the record industry, provided.
- ----------------
I dub thee a shallow thinker.
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UNIX isn't dead, it just smells funny...
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UNIX isn't dead, it just sme
I am seriously considering studying law. That way i can donate my time and skills in the fight against big corporations. Its a shame that big firms can hire teams of lawyers to bend and twist the law to suit their evil money grubbing schemes. And an individual will usually always lose, because they don't have the time or the money to fight these battles...
I will have to think this decision through...
Its spelt "L-I-N-U-X", but pronunced as "Free Beer"
I read in http://www.netclue.ch/nytimes.html that they wanted to prove a point ("you don't have a chance"). I just wanted to tell him that he is *not* alone. I suspect that most people here has very strong feelings regarding freedom and such.
It's absurd. The police actually confiscated his two computers!
What's next? www.cddb.com?
The Harry Fox Agency (HARRYFOX-DOM)
711 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Domain Name: HARRYFOX.COM
PolyGram Holding, Inc. (POLYGRAM5-DOM)
825 8th Avenue
New York, NY 10019
US
Domain Name: POLYGRAM.COM
Nothing worth doing is worth doing today.
Here's a random thought that popped into my head:
Don't most musicians, and artists in general, get into it because they enjoy it? Those of you in garage bands, how many are doing it with the expectation of getting rich?
I don't think a lack of financial incentive would deter new musicians much, if at all. What it WOULD do (and this would be good, imho) is stop musicians from producing music after it ceased being enjoyable to them. I mean, come on, how many bands are there that used to be great, but began to suck soon after they became big stars and money came into the picture?
Kiss
Rolling Stones
Aerosmith
Van Halen
Metallica
the list goes on and on....
These bands should have hung it up a long time ago, but still continue to churn out crap because there's a ton of money in it. Maybe if there wasn't so much money in music, there would be more _quality_ music.
The record companies hold the artist copyrights on the song and the song does include the lyrics.
what does that mean? it means I can't quote this:
"they say it's no game
that strange news from another star
alas, alas, that strange news from another star"
- Blur "Strange news from another star"
personally I think hunting down the people that buy the music is pathetic and I'll probably see someone in court when they read this =]
- MbM
- MbM
*cough* Internet 2 *cough*
The copyright madness is getting majorly out of hand.
my solution is, as much as possible, to mail order from small labels who do it for the love of the music, like Wayside or New Sonic Architecture or the Artist Shop, or even better directly from the artists, when they offer it. This way they get most of the money.
it's not their point of view that sucks the most, it's the LAW that makes it illegal to do something that isn't damaging the artists (now go tell me that they're selling less CDs because the lyrics are on a site!) or even the companies involved, and which is not even done for profit.
Is it just me, or does this view of culture seem as if it has inherent problems? :)
Wouldn't put it past Harry Fox and company.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
Who the heck buys CDs just for the lyrics, anyways? If I was a musician, I would _want_ my lyrics posted all over everywhere; it's free advertising. Musicians are trying to sell CDs and concert tickets, not the little book with the lyrics on it in the cover. How many bands these days have even halfway intelligent lyrics? Stupid music industry types... Some people need to learn to choose their battles, and stop fighting the consumers...
Kind of strange that it appeared in last week's NME as their featured web site, and now it's disappeared...
This is very distressing indeed (though hardly suprising). What will be even more distressing will be the corporate apologists who will almost certainly step in to belittle slashdotters who are understandably outraged at this action, probably citing the "holy writ" of IP law. In a world of the Lawyers, by the Lawyers, and for the Lawyers, where the words "you've got mail" (not to mention just about any other phrase in any human language) can be magically converted into "intellectual property" status by the arcane magic of the trademark, it should be no surprise that such things happen.
After all, those who step out of line and desecrate the sanctity of Intellectual Property(tm) can't be real people, and must therefor deserve the wrath they bring down upon themselves. Why else would our legal institutions, in which we are expected and required to place so much trust (under pain of punishment and social censure, complete with such labels as "slashdot longhair," "leftist radical," "pinko commie bastard," "shameless free thinker" and the like), come down so hard on them? Why else indeed. With the new copyright legislation in America set to kick in in another few months (and the near certainty that similar legislation will be enacted by other governments as well -- probably as a direct result American pressure), the only thing left say is the unsettling truth that, for all the distress such headlines may bring us, we ain't seen nothing yet.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
The Internet routes _around_ damage. Legal wrangling is damage. Now, where are those mirror sites? :)
--
The Internet is the Suppository of All Knowledge. You get it in the end.
I'm sure that most of us, like the post above, have used www.lyrics.ch to locate CD's that we purchased. So then, take the time to let'em know how this will hurt them - if nothing else they will get pissed at the huge number of complaint letters that they'll have to deal with.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
that the eight companies resposible for closing www.lyrics.ch are planning to open their own lyrics site. Think about how much money they could make on advertising if owned the only lyrics site out there...I'm so pissed - there's already a www.lyrics.com, anyone know about it? - it seems very green, but I've never bothered to check for lyrics.com.
\forall code \in C, \frac{\Delta readability(code)}{\Delta t} < 0
Yes, the one who writes the lyrics owns them. I agree with that.
> how big of a role do lyrics play in you liking a
> song ?
You think getting the lyrics for an album will keep people from buying it? I don't know anyone who has bought an album merely for the lyrics.
You can't compare a song by Bowie or Hendrix with its lyrics. Its lyrics are nothing. You can't compare listening to a concert with having someone merely read you the lyrics, can you?
I don't think they play a big role.
> Would you still love 'Imagine', for example, as
> much if the lyrics were not there ?
The lyrics are only worth because they are part of the song. How much would you pay to get the lyrics on a piece of paper? And how much would you pay to get the lyrics if you didn't know the song, if it didn't exist?
Azul.
oh... i'm so angry... shut down by the music- industry? what does these f***ing lamers want??? was lyrics.ch that bad for the music-industry? oh yeah, i know... i won't buy a cd, when i know
the text or what, cause i'm only interested in the lyrics... i tell you something: not mp3, nor the internet destroys the music-industrie... the music-industrie destroy itself... what has this todo with music, what's going on nowadays? only money counts... you can see it all day, can hear it all day, all the shit that is pushed by the industrie... what's up? i really don't know, that makes me angry and sad... you profit orientet fucking lamers,...
It will stop when we have to pay royalties for humming a song.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Now, if someone could just convince some big name bands to cut ties with their labels, and go Shareware...
Would the Id Software mentality work in the music industry? Would the Stones, for example, release a couple of new mp3 tracks, and let you purchase the rest of the new album right off their site? For say, $5?? It would be more than what they get per sale in the current scheme..
Does anyone know anyone at the EFF or GNU, that might be able to bring music into the fold?
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Look at it this way. Your air supply is the free flow of information (like song lyrics). Their air supply is the money they charge for music. If they cut off your air supply, it's only fair that you cut of theirs in exchange.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
Actually, the Internet became stupid when AOL let all the stupid people in.
--
Howard Roark, Architect
Howard Roark, Architect
I believe in a Man's right to exist for his own sake.
Sure it was legally right, but was it morally right? What harm did the lyrics server do to the record companies? My guess is that 99% of the people who went to that site either A) owned a cd that didn't come with lyrics and wanted to sing along, or B) had no intention of buying a cd just so they could get the lyrics to one song and wanted to sing along with the radio. In both situations the records companies lost no money. In A they already sold the cd, in B they were never going to.
-matt
The big happy lawyers for the RIAA got the olga (on-line guitar archive) hosed a few years ago. Actually IIRC it was only one record label, but it was enough. They got pissy because people wanted to know how the play the songs on the cds that they bought (no one had any idea what mp3s were back then, and cdrs still cost a lot, if you wanted cd quality audio, you bought a cd). They used the same old brain-dead reasons, "they're violating our intellectual property. we have to protect that sweet innocent IP from bad bad men who want to play it on their guitars." Legally they had every right to do what they did, but just because something is legal doesn't mean it's right. But that's America for you, "got money, will sue".
-matt
Why would we need one, exactly? "cypherpunks" "cypherpunks" continues to work.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
The least they could do is give them back there computers. That must suck! If they tried to take my computers...they would have to go through me and my GUN first! :)
NaTaS
Natas of
-=Pedophagia=-
http://www.mp3.com/pedophagia
Also Admin of
http://loki.linuxgames.com
I think also, that the bands themself should take a part in the decisions made on music in this era of technology. For instance, bands like the Grateful Dead, and Phish have, for all their careers allowed the taping and distribution of their live shows, as long as they were distributed non for profit. These made the bands successful before they were on any major labels, and as of now, there are hundreds of these "bootlegs" available all over the internet in RA and mp3 format, and this is accepted by the band, the record company, and the consumer. BTW, check out Sugarmegs Audio to see what I mean, there are many other great bands besides the two aformentioned that deem this acceptable.
well, i'm just as pissed as everybody else is.. my question is: Is there anything we can do? Can we email someone? A petition of some sort? What becomes of their database of songs?
If your as pissed as I am,
write the company responsible:
Harry Fox Agency at
http://www.nmpa.org/hfa.html
HFA
711 Third Avenue
New York, NY 10017
Tel: (212) 370-5330
Fax: (212) 953-2384
Questions about HFA or a
license request?
Contact the Client Services
Department at
clientservice@harryfox.com
I'm afraid. I'm afraid, Dave. Dave, my mind is going. I can feel it. I can feel it. My mind is going.
Does anyone know of any mirror sites of the lyrics.ch server?
Wouldn't it be a shame if 12 or 100 new lyric sites started popping up all over the place????
Maybe while trying to flex it's muscles, and show the average internet user how powerful the music industry can be, it might have just awoken a sleeping giant.
I understand that lawyers on behalf of the Harry Fox Agency have shut down the Lyrics server. I do not understand this very well, and let me explain why:
Foremost, it was free advertising for artists. 100,000 users totalling a million hits a day of people looking for the artist and album of the song they just heard on the radio, but didn't catch the info? That is, on a very ungenerous estimate, 50,000 customers a day who won't be able to find the correct album they want, and 100,000 customers _daily_ who will grumble under their breath at your agency for shutting the server down.
I, personally, have bought three CDs in the last 5 months or so because I found the correct album thanks to the lyrics server.
Also, I am the founder and channel manager for the UnderNet IRC chat room, #Poetry. I regularly used lyrics.ch to check up on questionable poems to see if they had plagarised a song, and have actually found a few plagarists of your copyrighted songs thanks to this server.
Thirdly, it is not like anyone could use the lyrics effectively to infringe on your copyrights of the song in general. To be able to cover the song de cently, they would still have to have all the guitar tabs and whatnot, and, in truth, a version of the song recorded to listen to. So, even for people covering the song, they've already bought the CD, just are double-checking the lyrics.
Personally, I'm not going to buy a non-used CD that has any relation to Harry Fox until I see the lyrics server back up.
You've lost a customer.
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
Why not invest into some server space and bandwidth in another country with loose laws? For example, mp3sandlyics.ru ! I'd gladly pay for membership on a server which can provide all those naughty things (mp3s/lyrics/guitar tabs)!
iscariot
It's probably a good thing that your comment is number 196. :)
/. is biased. We are the on-line community that HFA et al. are afraid of, and we happen to be the portion of the on-line community that is most vehemently opposed to greedy copyright laws.
Of course
I agree that they did what is 'legally' right. It was totally within their power. But what I, and most others oppose is the iron-grip tactics that they use to stifle anything that is not "Their Way". And it appears, at least to me, that Their Way is whatever is most lucrative.
-- Duane
an Anonymous Coward wrote:
>For a copyright to be enforceable, courts (at >least in the US) have determined that
>the copyright holder must exercise diligence
>in protecting and enforcing the copyright...
Not so. That applies only to trademark law, and
diligence in enforcing a trademark in court or
in cease-and-desist letters is only one factor
in determining if a trademark has lapsed.
The Harry Fox Agency only had lyrics.ch shut down
for the same reason a dog licks his balls: because
it can.
Aaron
Lyrics are only one of many components that make up a music composition that is recorded and copyrighted.
I hate the music industry and their copyright fanatical terrorism. I considered the lyrics server a great resource, and now it is gone, probably forever.
I wish someone would start an electronic email campaign or something we can do to support Pascal de Vries and show the music industry that this kind of copyright terrorism will not be tolerated by the free music loving people of the world.
I can not say it enough, this is unbelievable!!!!
This is just like the shutting down of Harmony Central which would allow people to post their transcripts of songs they had learned.
"Where is my mind?"