Yep, those money-hungry corporate bad-guys, the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) – the guys who have already pursued high-profile litigation against numerous organisations, including Amway, YouTube, Kazaa, LimeWire and Napster – are at it again. This time they have targeted lyrics-and-annotations-for-douches website Rap Genius and 49 other sites with ‘take-down’ notices because of a report by University of Georgia researcher David Lowery suggesting that these sites are ‘likely [of] not having licenses to publish lyrics.’ The NMPA is demanding that the sites either obtain licenses or remove copyrighted lyrics from their sites.
“These lyric sites have ignored the law and profited off the songwriters’ creative works, and NMPA will not allow this to continue,” said NMPA president and CEO David Israelite. “This is not a campaign against personal blogs, fan sites, or the many websites that provide lyrics legally. NMPA is targeting fifty sites that engage in blatant illegal behavior, which significantly impacts songwriters’ ability to make a living.”
Supposedly, these lyric sites’ use of unlicensed content detrimentally affects songwriters but the NMPA is cagey as to how this happens. They claim that every day, there are over five million searches for “lyrics” on Google alone, and over 50 percent of all lyric page views worldwide are on unlicensed lyric sites.
“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,” said David Lowery. “The lyric business is clearly more valuable in the Internet age.”
Last year Isrealite and co. took LyricWiki for an undisclosed amount of “funds associated with the exploitation of the unauthorized content .” and in 2010, ganked Life Universe for US$6.6 million.
How these sites making money from advertising is harming the artists though, is a question that we’d all like answered. Sure the artists’ and their long and complex string of representation could be making even more money from ‘licensing’ sites for permission to reprint lyrics, but it’s not like these websites are really stealing is it? And seriously, who needs their lyrics written down or annotated anyway? I like to listen to them…usually with musical accompaniment.
Here are the 50 sites:
www.rapgenius.com
www.lyricsmania.com
www.lyricstranslate.com
www.stlyrics.com
www.lyricsreg.com
www.lyricstime.com
www.lyrster.com
www.paroles-musique.com
www.kovideo.net
www.songonlyrics.com
www.index-of-mp3s.com
www.lyricstranslations.com
www.karaoke-lyrics.net
www.romantic-lyrics.com
www.maxilyrics.com
www.poemhunter.com
www.metal-head.org
www.songteksten.nl
www.lyricsres.com
www.lyricsdepot.com
www.songtextemania.com
www.lyricsboy.com
www.elyricsworld.com
www.e-chords.com
www.popdust.com
www.hotnewsonglyrics.co
www.anysonglyrics.com
www.guitaretab.com
www.allthelyrics.com
www.oldielyrics.com
www.musicloversgroup.com
www.karafun.com
www.lyrics.astraweb.com
www.videokeman.com
www.lybio.net
www.urbanlyrics.com
www.asklyrics.com
www.bmusiclyrics.com
www.nomorelyrics.net
www.plyrics.com
www.hitslyrics.com
www.vagalume.com.br
www.lyricsforsong.net
www.seeklyrics.com
www.letras.mus.br
www.lyricspinas.com
www.parolesmania.com
www.cowboylyrics.com
www.lyricsmansion.com
Matt Derody
[Via.]
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