[d00d]

In reply to:

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Most of the lyrics on the sites on question are not written by Gilbert or Hammerstein and most aren't available in any other form. No sale, no royalties.

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Doesn't matter. The profit potential is there.

In reply to:

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't most lyric writers get a share of the ASCAP performance fees and album sales royalties? Their royalty income has nothing to do with published lyric sheets (or sheet music).

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Nope. Many lyric writers and music composers derive a good amount of income from publishing their works.

[realtwang]

As a songwriter, I can see both sides of this arguement, but the thing I'm having trouble resolving in my mind, is that the writer makes their income from the sale of the song as a whole, not just the sale of the lyrics. If it's in sheet music form, that's still the song as a whole, being sold as music and lyrics. And people buy sheet music for the music, not for the lyrics. And most of the time it's someone who has to sing it at their [insert relative here]'s wedding/bar mitzvah/other special event. If they already know the song, they listen to it and write down the lyrics, or they search the net and find the lyrics. Either way, they are ending up with the lyrics without purchasing anything. Now, if I pay twelve bucks for a CD, I get the lyrics (if the album comes with lyrics as part of the packaging. And if they are part of the packaging in CD form, I believe it's reasonable for a purchaser to expect that same format in downloadable form. We do pay a bit less for downloaded music, but that's because of the decreased quality of sound. If Warner Chappell wants to stop lyrics being exchanged for free, they should get off their arses and provide an alternative, like Apple has done with music for iTunes They have not done this. As for fans posting lyrics on their personal sites, well, that's called free promotion. Post away, please. /forums/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/wink.gif

[stuckfly]

If you don't like the RIAA jerking you and "little guy" software companies around like little puppets then do something more than whining about it! ...er, not that we should stop complaining, it's just more effective combined with action.
Boycott. Write or call the companies that make these legal threats and tell them if they insist on getting their profits by lawsuit then they don't need your spending money. Contact your spineless greedy powerhungry representatives and senators (they do pay attention to the summarized tabulations of what their constituents want, if only to get reelected). Get a class action suit going against the RIAA, they don't like paying legal fees to defend their money; only to get it. Stop buying music from companies represented by the RIAA. Their whole strategy is based on their confidence (thus far proven well founded) that they can do whatever they want for profit because consumers (aka voters, aka powerless individuals) cannot do without their products and services. It's a free market, but it's only as free as you choose.
And it's simplistic and pointless to try comparing this issue to gun control, if you think about it for long the similarities turn out to be very weak, and if you convince enough people the issues are the same you'll get rid of gun liberties along with your music liberties, or (less likely) unrestraining both.
One more thing: I'd be surprised if Apple isn't already preparing an automated secure lyrics database for the tracks they sell, but it wouldn't hurt to request it anyway, as a free offering to raise the bar on their market advantage.

[Rugby]

thanks for your comment if you are a songwriter. Lyrics are a big part of the music experience but not necessarily a part that should be charged for. Technically as a buyer you have already bought (i.e.paid for) the song so the lyrics shouldnt be charged as extras as already mentioned... Hey I have written down the lyrics manually in the days of Vinyl, the WWW really scares the music industry !

[d00d]

In reply to:

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A song does not maintain its value when transcribed to just printed words. It's about the tune, the instruments used, the singing attributes, etc.

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Some Doors fans might disagree, pd.

[bufflo]

I'm a songwriter, and I too can see both sides. Not because I think there's any money to be gained from going after people who put up lyrics on the web, but if you look at it from the other (mu.biz) side, it's clear to see that W/C is acting like any other big corporation would in the same situation. If it's a smart thing to do, well, I doubt it.
It is all part of a different future we're heading into, where people just won't pay for music, as long as it's available to download for free elsewhere. With the copyright law being fairly explicit, this legal action on doesn't surprise me, but it kind of feels like the final act out of some sci-fi opera...
http://mpa.org/copyr....html#questions

[Swift2001]

I work for a caption and subtitles place. This has all happened before. We used to search for lyrics on a wonderful site in Switzerland, but that was shut down 5 or 6 years ago. Now, we were doing captions here for the deaf. We were attempting to caption the lyrics in a movie which had bought the rights to use the music. When they shut that site down, we would ask the studios for the lyrics, but they didn't know. The deals had been done by another division, other lawyers, other executives, at some other time. The person in charge of DVD production wasn't going to waste his time on a forensic lyrics and rights search.
The truth is, our copyright system is broken. As Lawrence Lessig says, there are about 36 million books in the list of candidates for Google Print. Only about 4,000,000 are in copyright. A lot of books out of print are still in copyright, but the status of about 24 million are simply unknown. Anything before 1923 is public domain, but after that, it all depends on whether the copyright holder applied for an extrension. Where can you find a list of extensions? There is none. So if you republish any of those 24 million, you're taking the chance that some lawyer will show up, prove that someone did the renewal in 1936, and you are now officially bankrupt, because the fines in a case like this are enormous. So we are losing our heritage. Our past is rotting away unused. Maybe that's intentional, so that our media conglomerates can stuff our heads with celebrity news and propaganda.
We need a simple way to navigate this system. The term used today is "intellectual property," but there is also the question of "intellectual inheritance."

[BobVB]

What the whole country has lost sight of is the constitutional protections for creative works is for the benefits of the citizens as a whole, not the people producing the work. So the question SHOULD be:
Does the unrestricted usage of this work by the citizens make it so the work's producer can not continue to produce similar work to a significant degree?
If the answer is 'no' then the citizens right to access to the work trumps the creators right to exclusive (and recently draconian) control.
As one note points out no one goes out and buys just lyrics - they buy the music and the lyrics. Access to the lyrics should be a common sense assumption when anyone buys a vocal piece - that it isn't just goes to show how far common sense has fallen out of favor.

[pdrayton]

In reply to:

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Some Doors fans might disagree, pd.

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Hehehehe... there are always exceptions!
But, from where do Doors fans buy just the lyrics?

[d00d]

From Amazon.com, of course.

[pdrayton]

Good for them for actually packaging their lyrics in a format that one would want to buy.
I do notice, however, that the lyrics work out to be 14 cents a song.
But as another poster commented, lyrics that are sold typically are sold as sheet music. I still don't think packaging one's lyrics (just lyrics) in a book is something mainstream music artists will find worthwhile.
I would think a better way to make money on lyrics for most artists would be to post them on their own web site for free (or for registration with an email address) and get revenue from Google ads on that page.
Artists who provide their lyrics for free as a way to leverage getting incremental revenue from other channels would be wise.

[scottellsworth]

Having just read the appropriate section of the US Constitution, I really think the present system is just plain broken. The copyright and patent systems exist to foster innovations, and the present system does not do so.
That nothing after 1923 is in the public domain is ludicrous. After a certain time, if you are an influential author, songwriter, moviemaker, or whatever, your thoughts have influenced people and should pass reasonably into the public domain. Not right away, but in a reasonable time.
Your life plus some decades is just not reasonable. A fixed period makes a lot more sense.
After all, Asimov used the term 'Frankenstein Complex' liberally in one of his later works. A strict reading, and period extension, of copyright law might well have prevented this reference even though people knew exactly what it meant.
I have heard the counter-argument that an author whose big work happens when they are young deserves protection, and I just do not see it. I wrote a great many stories, songs, and programs when I was twenty, and none of them are going to support me in my old age, nor is the work I did just after joining the workforce. I had to keep producing things of value to keep getting an income, and it seems fair that this is true of an author as well.
So, I just cannot see where the lyrics of a 50s Buddy Holly song should be protected over five decades later. A decade, or even a decade and a half - sure. Encourage good work.
Fifty years, no.
I can understand Tegan and Sarah, or Keane, currently hot bands with recent works, wanting to control their lyrics, though I can also see that they should be included for purchasers of the CD, etc. I do not buy decades old musical lyrics being controlled in the same way.
Scott

[d00d]

In reply to:

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But as another poster commented, lyrics that are sold typically are sold as sheet music. I still don't think packaging one's lyrics (just lyrics) in a book is something mainstream music artists will find worthwhile.

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Regardless, it's their work and they should be able to choose how to distribute it, right?

In reply to:

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I would think a better way to make money on lyrics for most artists would be to post them on their own web site for free (or for registration with an email address) and get revenue from Google ads on that page.

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And obviously some artists choose to make money on lyrics in other ways. The same argument could be applied to musical scores, or even the song files themselves. Shouldn't that be the artist's choice?

In reply to:

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Artists who provide their lyrics for free as a way to leverage getting incremental revenue from other channels would be wise.

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Again, let me point out the flaw in the argument by restating it.
Artists who give their songs out for free as MP3s on P2P networks as a way to leverage getting incremental revenue from other channels would be wise.