Music Publishers Force Another Lyric Site Offline

from the careful-what-you-sing-along-to dept

Back in August we wrote about the ridiculous situation with the National Music Publishers Association suing a bunch of lyrics sites for not paying up to help promote songs. This action helped push at least one of the sites, LyricWiki -- which was user generated lyrics -- to shut down (though, Wikia picked up the project and paid up to the NMPA). Now it appears that the NMPA has forced another one of these sites to shut down and hand over all of the money it made. Once again, be careful singing along to or quoting any lyrics. The songwriters and publishers want to get paid every time you do.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team

Filed Under: copyright, lyrics
Companies: nmpa


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 6 Jan 2010 @ 9:19pm

    Jesus christ, they really couldn't make people less interested in buying music if they fucking tried. Suing people left right and center, forcing lyrics sites offline, suing people who listen to the radio in public places. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that want to make music as illegal as heroine and crystal meth.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    edgebilliards (profile), 6 Jan 2010 @ 10:42pm

    it seems there's gotta be something i'm missing. there has to be some remotely sane reason that these companies snuff out possible "infringement" wherever it appears. is it to avoid setting some sort of precedent? are they worried there will be a swarm of infringers if they appear to have turned a blind eye? maybe they do it because it sets music rights at ridiculous values in the eyes of the court (see any decision on "public performance" infringement, alternately, music piracy lawsuits).
    it's getting harder and harder to believe that some of these ludicrous cases are merely money-grabs. in a lot of them, the money is barely worth the effort. i understand that lyrics sites use derivative works by commercials means, but how is that damaging to anyone?

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Chris in Utah (profile), 7 Jan 2010 @ 12:18am

      Re:

      Just a thought but 1984 orwell comes to mind.

      The Party said that Oceania had never been in alliance with Eurasia. He, Winston Smith, knew that Oceania had been in alliance with Eurasia as short a time as four years ago. But where did that knowledge exist? Only in his own consciousness, which in any case must soon be annihilated. And if all others accepted the lie which the Party imposed -if all records told the same tale — then the lie passed into history and became truth. ’Who controls the past,’ ran
      the Party slogan, ’controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.’ And yet the past, though of its nature alterable, never had been altered. Whatever was true now was true from everlasting to everlasting. It was quite
      simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. ’Reality control’, they called it: in Newspeak, ’doublethink’

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 7 Jan 2010 @ 12:22am

    The article appears to indicate they went after Motive Force LLC and its owner Sean Colombo again which is the same guy that did lyricswiki. The article mentioned apps. I'm guessing the NMPA was not happy enough taking down just lyrics wiki, but now also want to go after any apps that used it. In this case my guess would be his LyricWiki Challenge game based on LyricWiki songs.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    TFP, 7 Jan 2010 @ 12:42am

    MentalSlavery

    Eat the rich - it's the only way to be sure.We should probably start with Bono.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      Marcel de Jong (profile), 7 Jan 2010 @ 3:39am

      Re: MentalSlavery

      *sharpens his knives and forks*
      *fires up the BBQ*
      Do you want head or tails first?

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Kevin (profile), 7 Jan 2010 @ 12:43am

    Stupidity, Squared

    If they want us to quit creating lyric sites and apps, why don't they give us the !@!$@# lyrics in the first place? They should be included with digital downloads. They don't provide them, then stop any means of getting them. What is their rationale? I don't understand this at all. I think they're all high on something.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • icon
    Griff (profile), 7 Jan 2010 @ 1:30am

    Aren't the lyrics public domain information ?

    If a song has been played on broadcast radio, with the listener not agreeing to any TOC's then surely the fact of what the lyrics are is then in the public domain.

    If someone standing next to me hears the song and says "What did he just sing ?" am I in breach of the law to answer that question ? Or to charge for answering the question ? Or to hold up an advert while answering the question for free ?

    What about if that conversation happens in an online forum ?

    It's very short step from discussion forum to wiki site, surely.

    We need judges with more backbone...

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    cc, 7 Jan 2010 @ 2:45am

    Attacking lyrics sites is THE stupidest thing they can do. Say, I hear a song on tv or on the radio, what's the easiest way to find out what it is? Google some of the lyrics!

    If there are no lyrics online, the song doesn't get found.

    But, on the other hand, if it's a song that's not actively being promoted and doesn't have the backing of their huge wads of cash (to get it huge amounts of exposure), I may never hear it again. That's to their advantage, because I may otherwise go buy something that they are selling instead of what I want to hear. Would not be surprised if this is really their rationale.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

    • icon
      PaulT (profile), 7 Jan 2010 @ 6:00am

      Re:

      "If there are no lyrics online, the song doesn't get found."

      Truer words have never been spoken. I've certainly found songs this way.

      On the other hand, if lyrics are always available, sites like this wouldn't exist: http://www.kissthisguy.com/

      "buy something that they are selling instead of what I want to hear"

      Sadly, this is exactly how the music industry has been run for the last 30 years, and they've gotten relatively good at it. A shame they can't recognise that this is what's causing their revenues to fall...

      link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 8 Jan 2010 @ 10:35am

    as an artist, i feel my blood boiling with news like this. the publishers are shooting songwriters in the foot. i make music so that others can experience it and take something from my art, this is sending the entirely wrong message to music fans.

    link to this | view in chronology ]

  • identicon
    2Sports, 9 Jan 2010 @ 3:41am

    I heard a song on the radio yesterday and Googled the lyrics to find out who it was. This took me to a lyrics web site and I was able to find out who it was and I later bought it on iTunes!!
    I simply can't imagine the mentality of shutting these sites down, Lord know how much I'll have to pay if I decide to sing along to it in the car...

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.