Music Industry Looking for Lyrics Payoff

theodp writes "U.S. digital entertainment company Gracenote has obtained licenses to distribute the lyrics of more than 1 million songs. Music publishers are still mulling legal action against Web sites that provide lyrics without authorization." From the article: "Ralph Peer II, Firth's counterpart at peermusic, said licensing lyrics should boost worldwide music publishing revenues, estimated at about $4 billion annually. Peer said he hopes the unauthorized sites will seek licenses. 'I think we'll see a reasonable increase, as much as a 5 percent increase, in industry music publishing revenues five years out from where we are right now,' Peer said."

Re:Not unexpected really

[freedom_india]

I buy mine from allofmp3.com

That way RIAA doesn't get my money and yet i get to download all latest songs...

Re:idiots

[Pulse_Instance]

MxTabs has recently shut down, if you go to mxtabs [mxtabs.net] all you will get is a few paragraphs explaiming that they have shut down.

Geez I Hope So

[Mateo_LeFou]

"Could you go without purchasing or even downloading music for 3 months? 6 months? a year? to prove a point?"

Geez, I hope so.

If you can't find enough music to listen to here [magnatune.com] or here [comfortstand.com] or here [mono211.com] or here [exegene.com] or here [subliminaltapeclub.com] or here [lacunae.com] then I pity you. But try here [tryad.org] or here [creativecommons.org] before giving up entirely.

Re:idiots

[orangesquid]

(IANAL) In Eurpoe, you aren't allowed to sing a song in public that's not yours. That was already against the law; it's public performance of someone else's work. In the USA, public performance of another's material is acceptable providing that the performance is your own (e.g., you can't sit on your front porch with your boombox nor roll your car windows down while playing a CD*, because the performance being emitted to the general public is the original artist's). At least, these things are all true in commerce, but might not apply to nonprofit events: if you are strumming nirvana on a guitar on a streetcorner, and you will only play when someone puts money in your hat, you're charging for your performance; if you just put your hat down hoping for tips (but don't TELL people to give you tips--although maybe you can say that you'd appreciate tips---you definitely can't request it of them, even if you play regardless of getting tipped), that might be OK (but it could be illegal on panhandling/loitering/solicitation/public nuisance/trespassing/harrassment/public endangerment/noise violation---basically, if a cop doesn't like you, he'll find SOME way to arrest you), and if you don't take tips at all you're probably OK.

* = I am not sure about radio. It might be OK to play radio with your windows down, because it's broadcast on [sort-of] public channels.

It'd be cool if a bunch of independent artists got together and ran a free lyrics database (minimal and non-annoying advertising, reproductions allowed under various terms on a song-by-song basis, maybe also mentioning public performance and recording covers policies alongside [e.g., creative commons licenses]) lyrics database, AND specifically forbid gracenote from using their lyrics in any way. ;)

You must pay to do covers even now.

[Mister_IQ]

I think the next dumbass thing the MPAA will try is to charge bands to cover songs at any live performance.


Um, they already do. Any bar you see that has a band pays money to allow music to be performed. Any festival or outdoor venue does too.

From WSU's page [wsu.edu] (which says the same as other pages, just in an understandable format):

The right to perform or play a song in public is one of the exclusive rights of the copyright holder. You will need to get permission or a license if you play music in public unless the music is in the Public Domain or the use of the music qualifies as fair use. But the line between what is private and what is public is complicated. Prior to the Music Licensing Act in 19982, some court cases have drawn the line and declared public uses of music to be copyright infringement unless licensed, as follows:

• Radio stations, bars, night clubs, and juke box operators;
• Hotels that play the radio for guests through speakers or headphones;
• Restaurants;
• Stores;
• Telephone intercom systems that play music while callers are on hold.