Music Should Be Heard But Not Understood 462
PaxTech writes "Warner/Chapell music has cease-and-desisted a small freeware developer who wrote a Mac OS X lyrics downoading application. pearLyrics in no way contributed to piracy or copyright infringement, it was merely a tool to search for lyrics on public websites and view or add them to mp3 metadata. This is part of a larger crackdown on websites distributing lyrics. Apparently, the labels would like to force us back to a world where Hendrix kisses guys."
Facilitators (Score:5, Interesting)
While I enjoy freely available and searchable lyrics, I must admit 9 out of 10 times I regretted having looked up the lyrics, it kinda ruins my feeling once I understand every single word and can sing-a-long. Am I the only one having this kind of 'empty-yet-lyric-filled' feeling?
what?!? he doesnt kiss guys... (Score:5, Interesting)
Forgetting one thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Since I don't want to be on the whole defensive of the RIAA, here's a link to the RIAA Radar [magnetbox.com] to balance things - boycott the RIAA!
Neat factoid (Score:1, Interesting)
And history repeats itself... (Score:5, Interesting)
Some of the details of Vivarin's story are *very* interesting. The overall arc is similar to pearLyrics: a new search tool for lyrics is created, then eventually cease-and-desisted. But many of the details, and the early internet era in which they occured, make for a good read.
It's sad, even pathetic, that in all these years the RIAA and its member companies haven't gotten even the least bit of clue. These sorts of search services add enourmous value. Thousands of people were able to identify and purchase music based on Vivarin's services ("what is that song, I remember a few words..?"). Heck, Warner's laywers called to provide thanks as Vivarin had helped them to win a legal case.
I seriously hope that the RIAA's stranglehold doesn't let up before they realize that hold is around their collective neck.
Re:More reasons to end copyright (Score:1, Interesting)
Embarrassing (Score:5, Interesting)
The RIAA doesn't really help you in your musical career and they act like psychotic creeps. How long before people will stop want to be musicians because they don't want to have to be associated with these RIAA industry people.
Could music actually become uncool as a result of the RIAA's vulgar actions? (I sound like Carrie Bradshaw there) Or are the people who want to become rock stars so out of it anyway that they couldn't care less?
Slap back (Score:2, Interesting)
The record labels may have the rights to the artist's sound recordings, but the actual music and lyrics to any given song is another matter. If i were the Pearlyric author (which, btw, is a great widget on Mac OS X Tiger and, thankfully, continues to work), I would ask whomever sent the C&D notice to provide proof (written documentation) of copyright ownership pertaining specifically to lyrics (or, alternatively, proof of assignment of copyright ownership or agency) for all songs which Warner claims to have enforcement standing. I don't think they can, at least not for song lyrics. Those rights are held by the music publisher, which generally isn't the record company.
The Pearlyric author makes a good point that his app is nothing more than an aggregator of content that is already freely available on the net. Essentially, there isn't an effective difference between his app and, say, Google. Both do the same thing; only Pearlyric (as the name implies) has the narrow purpose of gathering song lyrics currently on the net (from established lyric content sites) based on either the song being played in iTunes or a user generated search. If Pearlyric is guilty of infringement here, then so is Google (or any other search engine), not to mention the lyric site owners.
Moreover, the Pearlyric application is (err...was) distributed for free and is clearly intended for narrow, personal use only. A claim of infringement here is wildly misplaced, particularly when it's made by the record companies.
Re:Facilitators (Score:1, Interesting)
This sort of thing happened to me all the time when I listened to top40 a few years ago. I think it has to do with the lack of substance in most pop music--i find it to be rather superficial. Once you've memorized all the lyrics (which are the emphasis of the song for the most part), there's really not much else to discover about the song--there's no way to 'defamiliarize' it. Since often the progression is the same 4/4 I-IV-V you've heard in other songs (just in a different key) your mind can easily predict what chords are going to come next, and the song structure itself is usually loop-like(?) in nature.
Just lettin ya know what I thought.
Re:Facilitators (Score:3, Interesting)
Classical choral music makes up about 2/3 of my collection of several thousand CDs/tapes/records (yeah, I'm a dinosaur, but still). I have a pretty large circle of friends and family for whom it makes up a smaller, but still significant, percentage. We're all always on the look for well-done recordings of choral music, especially if the choir or the compositions on the recording are new or unusual in some way.
You need to widen your circle of acquaintances if you really think that it's "simply not true" that "people give a fuck about" types of music you don't listen to just because they're not played on your favorite ClearChannel station.
Re:Next..Next... (Score:2, Interesting)
Can't remember the name of the story anymore, which is sad, because it quite well describes where we might be heading.