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.
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
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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 thread ]
Re:
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 thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
MentalSlavery
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Stupidity, Squared
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Aren't the lyrics public domain information ?
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 thread ]
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 thread ]
Re: MentalSlavery
*fires up the BBQ*
Do you want head or tails first?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
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 thread ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Stupidity, Squared
[ link to this | view in thread ]
[ link to this | view in thread ]
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 thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
[ link to this | view in thread ]