When Is A Lyric Site More Than A Lyric Site?
from the used-for-commentary dept
Honestly, if there's anything more stupid than the music industry and song-writers going after lyrics sites, I can't imagine what that thing might be. We've talked in the past about how short-sighted it is for the profiteers of interest in songs targeting websites that do little beyond promoting interest in those same songs. Even the most obviously single-purpose lyric site that does nothing but post song lyrics is likely innocuous at worst and beneficial to all involved at best. Yet they're constant targets. Blech.
But sometimes this goes beyond blinder-vision and moves into a complete mis-targeting. That seems to be the case with the inclusion of RapGenius.com on the National Music Publisher's Association hitlist of sites from their press conference on Monday. The NMPA insisted all sites immediately pull lyrics off the site. RapGenius, for those of you not in the know, is much more than a lyrics site. But, according to one guy that I think I've heard of before:
David Lowery, a veteran of the bands Camper Van Beethoven and Cracker who has tracked the sites in his research for the University of Georgia, says they are big business.What?!? First, it's hard to square these sites being ignored with their constantly being targeted and sued. Second, to understand what a site like RapGenius is and does, you actually have to look at the site. A cursory glance shows that the entire point of the site is to foster a conversation and commentary around lyrics (and more), their meaning, and their interpretations. This is done through user annotations, fostering a back and forth that often times includes the songwriters themselves. As RapGenius founder Ilan Zechory notes:
“Unlicensed lyric sites are largely ignored as copyright infringers, but in fact these sites generate huge web traffic and involve more money than one might think,” he said. “The lyric business is clearly more valuable in the Internet age.”
“Rap Genius is so much more than a lyrics site! The lyrics sites the NMPA refers to simply display song lyrics, while Rap Genius has crowdsourced annotations that give context to all the lyrics line by line, and tens of thousands of verified annotations directly from writers and performers. These layers of context and meaning transform a static, flat lyric page into an interactive, vibrant art experience created by a community of volunteer scholars. Furthermore, music is only a small part of what we do. Rap Genius is an interactive encyclopedia for annotation of all texts — anyone can upload and annotate texts relating to music, news, literature, religion, science, their personal lives, or anything else they want,” he concluded.So, the questions are pretty obvious. First, why is the NMPA going after a site that is clothed in several layers of Fair Use armor? And second, why is an association that is supposed to protect the rights of all their songwriting members going after a site that many of them appear to enjoy using. Finally, what the hell kind of good is supposed to come of any of this? I'm not sure what the end-game is supposed to be for the NMPA, but this looks like a massive swing-and-a-miss to me. Oh, and it should be noted that people appear to have posted Techdirt articles to RapGenius as well, and everyone at Techdirt thinks that's great. We'd actually be really pissed off if some misguided attempt to squeeze money out of the site meant that our own content was held back and less widely distributed.
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Filed Under: annotations, copyright, fair use, lyrics
Companies: nmpa, rapgenius
Reader Comments
The First Word
“If the lyric sites are are making so much money and taking money away from the record companies and songwriters then WHY DON'T THE RECORD COMPANIES AND SONGWRITERS MAKE LYRIC SITES THEMSELVES AND PROFIT???
The void being filled is of their own making.
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The whole point of music is, well, the music, so it's a pretty stupid argument to say that lyrics sites detract from the commercial work in any way, shape or form.
Plus, the number of times I've heard a song on the radio, looked up the lyrics online because I'm a huge goofball that likes singing in the car, and gone on to buy the song (or even full album) based on how much I like the song...well, it happens really often.
The music industry has its head so far up its own ass it's astounding.
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Oh, Him
N.
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Lowery is right though
See: http://thetrichordist.com/2012/04/15/meet-the-new-boss-worse-than-the-old-boss-full-post/
Ha ha!
On a serious note, it's no different then the attack on the tab sites for guitar. They have incredibly annoying ads. Maybe if the publishers had official tabs (not combo books of "best guesses" as some are, or full album books which some are accurate, some are again best guesses) available in PDF format for a reasonable price, like $1, people would buy them instead of $20 - $40 for a full book.
Lyrics sites are full of annoying ads as well. But when was there a published book full of official song lyrics? Usually those are bundled with sheet music and sold at a higher price. If one only wanted to remember the 2nd verse of a song, or needed a refresher, the lyric sites are helpful.
They don't drive piracy.
What's next, liner notes? Sue wikipedia because they post who produced the album and which tracks are listed, and maybe even some production notes?
Fuck yeah, let's lock everything up because that so helps culture!
And why am I not surprised Lowery is ranting about this?
Fuck, while we're at it, let's kill the radio, people *might* turn the station during a commercial and artists (labels) won't get paid.
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They don't want you touching anything that can claim as theirs so don't just leave the A-holes playing alone with their crap and all will be well.
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I hope you're paying royalties for your public performance!
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With lyric sites - vs without
Catch a song I like the sound of on the radio station playing in the sports centre in the morning - maybe only hear an odd bit of lyric.
Type said lyric into Google - and find out what the song was - who has performed it and who wrote it. Now I'm in the position where there is a chance I might pay some money (maybe just via an ad on a Youtube video - but just maybe go to a concert and pay quite a bit)
Without Lyric sites
Catch a song I like the sound of on the radio station playing in the sports centre in the morning - maybe only hear an odd bit of lyric.
Type said lyric into Google - result - zilch.
Never find out who it was, what the song was or anything.
How that situation would be better for anybody just beats me.
Lowery and his ilk manage to combine the worse execesses of jealously, control freakery, greed and a "dog in a manger" attitude all rolled into one appalling mess.
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Hell, I've got legally purchased CDs whereon the 'artist' has chosen to not share what words they're singing. Maybe they are embarrassed of them?
Lyric sites only drive interest, not infringement. What a stupid way to go through life: someone's daring to read my words without paying! People know my words! Oh no!
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NMPA needs to inform people about Noscript, Adblock, and hosts files!
That fits nicely with all my views. Advertising is among the lowest of the grifters, promotes insane consumerism besides mind-sapping entertainments.
Of course the above steps would ruin Google's "business model" too, so this entirely practicable solution that anyone can do in a matter of minutes won't be favored by those who, like Techdirt, gain income from advertising. But then Techdirt isn't about solutions, 'cause the very existence of problems is all that draws eyeballs here.
Worse than being censored on the net is being advertised. You can escape censorship with your ideas intact; advertising uses lures and tricks to re-shape your very mind.
11:25:26[m-626-8]
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Re: NMPA needs to inform people about Noscript, Adblock, and hosts files!
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Well, I learned that David Lowery has become a real tool.
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There is a dimension (almost off-topic) that only non-native speakers would understand. In late 70s rock music hit me upon the head (in a good sense): it was something unspokenly magic. With the words I did not understand, but it did not matter. When I finally started understanding the lyrics... well... not all, but a sizable portion was an utter disappointment.
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Re: NMPA needs to inform people about Noscript, Adblock, and hosts files!
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If the lyric sites are are making so much money and taking money away from the record companies and songwriters then WHY DON'T THE RECORD COMPANIES AND SONGWRITERS MAKE LYRIC SITES THEMSELVES AND PROFIT???
The void being filled is of their own making.
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I've never understood this. Absolutely nobody likes going to lyrics websites. They're spammy and ugly and often inaccurate. I doubt the people who create them even like them. But people go to them because we want to know what the real lyrics are and we have no other choice.
So WTF, musicians? If I can go to your (Flash-built, designed for 2002) website for tour dates, merch, discography, etc., why can't you help me sing along to your songs that I already like?
You want to put lyrics sites out of business? Become the definitive place to go to find your lyrics. Boom. I'd never go to another lyrics site again.
(I would still go to rapgenius though.)
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Re:
* If I came up with something (no matter if it was inspired by anything else) I should have complete control over it;
* No one should be able to make any money from my stuff without my permission;
* If someone does make money from my stuff without my permission, even if they are willing to pay me some of the proceeds and are doing a positive service, they must be stopped and punished.
I can see why people hold these views and understand where they are coming from, but they are major stumbling-blocks in reform of copyright law and technological progress. I think it comes from modern copyright being based on ownership and permission, rather than exploitation with reasonable remuneration.
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FILE UNDER
GARBAGE WANNA BE ROCK !
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My understanding is that the publishers are going after unlicensed lyrics sites. Is that incorrect?
As far as I know, there are perfectly legitimate lyrics sites that obtain the proper licenses, and they are not a part of this crack down. AZLyrics.com springs to mind.
The fact is, lyricists put a lot of work into their songs. I don't see why their contributions should be considered irrelevant when it comes to copyright. Is a screenwriter's contribution to a film negligible?
Although, going after RapGenius.com is a little ridiculous, since it is so popular. Did the labels approach them and offer a chance to legally license the lyrics?
It's complicated area. I know people complain about lyrics missing from CD booklets, but many people don't quite grok that the lyrics are held under a different copyright, often owned by someone who is not under contract to said label; the labels don't always have explicit permission to reprint them. Anyone who reads liner notes is probably familiar with the phrase "Lyrics reprinted with the permission of..."
Seems like people might be jumping the gun here. I mean, we should encourage the people who are behaving legally, right? That means the people breaking the law have to be put in their place, or the whole system breaks down.
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Regular music buyer
As some that buys 40 or 50 albums per year, I'm of the opinion that shutting down these sites will adversely impact my music purchases.
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Re:
Not really. Let me uncomplicate it for you right now:
The consumer
DOESNT GIVE A FLYING FUCK
who has the copyright to what parts of what songs. They just want to know what the fucking words are that are being sung to a song they LIKE AND ENJOY, and would probably buy if they could actually figure out the song from a briefly-heard lyric. But noooOOOoooo...super-control-freak-delta has to step in and SQUASH mr. consumer like a BUG for daring to not be knowledgable about the state of copyright for all songs in creation.
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Nobody at all has claimed this.
"I mean, we should encourage the people who are behaving legally, right? That means the people breaking the law have to be put in their place, or the whole system breaks down."
If you were talking about a set of laws that were respected by most people and understood to provide a worthwhile benefit to society, you'd have a point. But we're talking about copyright, and that is no longer the case for modern copyright laws. The system is broken.
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Does the music industry really want to discourage customers like me?
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If I'm paying for a download, I fully expect it to come with embedded artwork and lyrics.
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Well, technically, a hole is a shape.
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If you don't pay them for a song at least 100 times then you aren't the sort of customer they want.
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This reminds me of a ridiculous episode. A couple of years ago I had an argument here about this subject with someone (who I think claimed to be a songwriter or at least a musician, but I don't recall exactly). He literally tried arguing that the only acceptable way to learn the lyrics to a song was to go to a music store and buy the sheet music. That the only acceptable way to find a song from some half-remembered lyrics was to ask an employee of such a store.
He rejected all attempts to understand reality - that most such needs are fleeting and not worth the effort for most people; that even if they weren't a huge number of people don't live anywhere near such a store; that even if they did, sheet music costs many times more than the recording and so most people won't buy it; that many people go on to buy music they literally wouldn't be able to find without the desired information and most of these are impulse buys that lose momentum in minutes.
That's what we're dealing with - people who are so protective of what they think the industry should be, they're actually pushing away methods by which people can discover, enjoy and even buy their music. But of course, you won't be able to show those people that "piracy" isn't the reason for their failures.
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In other words, yet another example of the music industry trying to rip off their customers then turning to lawyers instead of actually giving their customers what they want.
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As long as everyone gets a good cut, they will shut up about contractual inconsistencies, but as soon as someone is said to game the system without paying...
Music industry has been too complex for their own good. Now the copyright abomination they setup has started cracking them up from the inside.
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Re: With lyric sites - vs without
The only way it makes sense is with corporate controlled radio. With that, you don't get bombarded with lots of songs from lots of different sources, you get the same 20 or 30 songs that have been pre-approved for promotion by the major labels. There's only a small group of artists and songs it could possibly be, and since you'll get to hear the song again soon if you're not sure what it is, such services are unnecessary. The outlet you choose is irrelevant, since ClearChannel makes sure they all play the same songs all the time.
Where the labels start to have problems is when actual choice is introduced.
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Re: NMPA needs to inform people about Noscript, Adblock, and hosts files!
What the fuck does that even mean?
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Re: Re: NMPA needs to inform people about Noscript, Adblock, and hosts files!
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Maybe it likes the view?
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Here's the deal.
What the record labels consider valuable is throughput. The ideal customer is one who hears every song only once per offering. If you learn the lyrics to a song, you are going to spend extraordinarily much time with that one song, going with the same recording for a long time or, God forbid, even playing it yourself.
That's nothing the record labels want. The reason for crushing the lyrics market is similar to record labels using an exclusive deal with established artists for making them disappear from the landscape, making room for new fly-by-nights.
"Planned obsolescence" is not only a revenue strategy in engineering, it's the same in music.
Lyrics are worse than full scores: full scores are likely to be played in professional contexts, again delivering royalties.
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I have no idea how much effort has been made to license lyric sites, but the point is that these sites have built a viable business (otherwise they wouldn't exist in the first place) off the back of other people's work (the songwriters, represented by the publishers). I'm sure it's not anyone's intention to charge users of these sites to look at song lyrics - the lyricists just want a realistic share of the revenue being generated from their work. Is that so unreasonable?
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20 years and you just figured this out.
You insipid has-been.
Without copyright laws as they currently stand, perhaps your beloved labels would have gotten off of their asses sooner to meet this consumer demand.
See this is the part that a majority of the big label promoting types miss in the equation.
WITHOUT CONSUMERS YOU MAKE NOTHING.
You seem to think that copyright law merely exists to extract cash from the ether and place it into your label account where someday they might dain to send you a royalty check... if they can find you, if they don't change the records to hide income and sit on it.
You business is to provide entertainment to be consumed by customers, this is the part you all seem to have forgotten.
You abuse consumers with price fixing, DRM, and killing off any innovation that MIGHT injure you in imaginary ways.
In return we get what?
Its not a fair trade.
Go stomp your feet and prove us wrong. Withdraw all of your wondrous creations from the market never to return. I know I'll be happier not having to listen to your vapid mewling any longer.
Make room for the future old man, your kind has held it back long enough.
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ADA should require lyric sites
Perhaps proprietors of lyric sites should spin their offerings this way. It would be a PR disaster for a music publisher to try to shut down a site that is only purporting to provide services to the hearing-impaired community.
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If someone actually said that, then they have obviously never worked in such a store. Having worked in a similar environment (bookstore) this is ludicrous. As if every employee at every store is supposed to have encyclopedic knowledge of every song ever heard by anyone coming in. Plus, even if they did I can't tell you the number of times customers would come in looking for "Something about birds. They talked about on Good Morning America a few weeks ago, I think. What do you mean that's not enough info to find it?"
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Interesting...
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Hell, put a system in place such that lyricists actually get the money. Under the current one it's obvious they're not getting the money, and shutting down the lyric sites won't actually put money in their pockets.
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Rap Genius
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the damn lyric/text files for a whole album would be -what- a couple K ? ? ? now that i'm thinking about your great idea (which a poster below says has been implemented in -you know- NON OFFICIAL ways), it pisses me off EVEN MORE at the useless MAFIAA dons...
that was what was lost with going from albums to CDs (and even more so with MP3's), the loss of cover art, as well as the liner notes, and -many times- even the damn lyrics...
as far as i can tell, even when you buy a physical CD these days, they don't generally have the lyrics...
it's almost as if the lyrics are meaningless sounds to accompany the music...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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Re:
i regularly rant about how you can't *hear* the lyrics half the time UNLESS you go to relatively extreme lengths and play it back a hundred times to pick out the unintelligible words...
for me, it is an effort not worth undertaking to parse and translate and squint my ears (yes, i said that) to *TRY* to pick out words/lines in pop songs...
to what end ? "i love you baby, do you love me, ooo oooo, oooo ooo"
okay, i played a song back ten times to pick out *those* life-changing lyrics ? ? ? i don't think so...
for the most part, it is 'the sound' that catches my attention, the lyrics are almost meaningless these days...
i know that is unfair to the songsmiths who craft clever, smart, entertaining, insightful lyrics, but i'm just not going to waste my time figuring lyrics for 100 songs for the sake of the one which is 'good'...
its junk food for the ears...
art guerrilla
aka ann archy
eof
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i liked the phil collins song better when i thought he was singing 'paper plate, paper plate'...
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I'm surprised more bands don't use this for fabulous Easter eggs, or maybe they do and I haven't noticed.
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Unlicensed lyric sites are making a business out of someone else's work, and they ought to be paying on some of the money they're making from advertising.
Like Spotify or Youtube plays, it's not going to be much money per view, but that's not the point. The point is that if anyone is free to make use of lyrics for nothing, why would anyone ever bother to obtain a license to post lyrics? By (attempting to) close down infringing sites, others are encouraged to do things properly. In the end, consumers don't pay anything directly, but the songwriters get paid. It's like comparing Spotify with The Pirate Bay - there isn't much money per stream, but it's a compromise that most are happy with when compared to outright theft.
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/misheard-song-lyrics-misquoted-spotify_n_3579834.html
A lthough, on the Clash one, I always thought it was a wedding song and they were "rocking the cash bar" myself.
I hadn't heard the one about Elton's "Hold me closer, Tony Danza". I about fell out of my chair laughing at that.
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AZLyrics doesn't look legit in any way. Horrible interface. User submissions. Registered in Panama. DMCA info on its site. Embedded music videos. And "All lyrics provided for educational purposes only." - a weak claim of fair use.
None of this points to a site filled with licensed material.
Unfortunately, NOBODY could afford to pay the royalties for the massive database of song lyrics that a lyric site would need to be useful. Every songwriter in the last 100 years would want a piece of that pie.
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Re: Regular music buyer
Even if I didn't have a clue what they were talking about, I'd ask them to sing it to me anyway just for my entertainment.
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So the publishers are OK with all the sites that host lyrics but aren't making an income from it? There are quite a few of those.
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And it's this type of nonsense that helps to make copyright issues impossible to untangle, weakens copyright in general, and harmful to art.
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Just like by attempting to sue grandmothers, others are encouraged to do things properly. Yet year after year, the RIAA claims that piracy is increasing, not decreasing, and they still manage to pay Mitch Bainwol and Cary Sherman increasing bonuses.
Colour me not convinced.
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BUT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY!!!
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But I'll answer your question: it entirely depends. I can think of many situations where I'd be happy to let some people use my stuff for free when others are willing to pay for it. In fact, I do this routinely. It's often very good business.
But for lyrics in particular, I don't think I'd have a big problem with the situation, no. As the author of lyrics, my income would not come from people reading them. It would come from performers performing them. Having the lyrics published on sites wouldn't harm my business, and would very likely help it.
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