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Warner Chappell Apology For PearLyrics 120

Posted by Zonk from the now-we-can-eat-fruit-again dept.
RacerZero writes "The recent Slashdot story Music Should Be Heard But Not Understood sparked a good deal of discussion about the overreaction of music industry heavyweights. This week Wired is running an apology from Warner Chappel music for their poor judgement. From the article: 'Facing an upswell of protest, Warner Chappell Music on Friday formally apologized to Walter Ritter over a letter it sent to the software programmer earlier this month targeting a helper application for Apple's iTunes called pearLyrics.'"
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Warner Chappell Apology For PearLyrics More

Warner Chappell Apology For PearLyrics

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  • Sad but (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ravenspear ( 756059 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @02:33PM (#14286449)
    Incidents like this illustrate the absurd litigious reactionaryism of the current music industry.

    1. Music Industry hears of application/service/person doing anything new related to music
    2. SUE SUE SUE I SAY!!!!!!!!!
    3. Oh wait, you mean this application/service/person might actually be doing something legal/useful/beneficial to us??? oh ok we're sorry

    • Killing the Golden Goose (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @02:46PM (#14286530) Journal
      otherwise known as the tradgedy of the commons, or

      "First, We kill all the lawyers"

      the music industry has gotten so paranoid that free advertising is seen as a mortal threat.

      a friend of mine who is in the business told me recently:

      Oh, I love these "the big record companies are Satan" kind of posts.

      All my friends at big record companies would vastly prefer this to be the case as opposed to the reality:

      the big record companies don't have a clue and are scared they won't exist in ten years.

      that last bit is interesting:

      and are scared they won't exist in ten years.

      Of course, the paranoia doesn't help, and still leaves us with the question of what would be a realistic business plan they could follow.

      • A wonderful point, I beilive from their actions thus far the body of evidence supports this claim. Television is trying it's hardest to pretend they have a clue, and in the end, I think it's going to work for them. (*thankfully Tivo gave them a kick in the arse) But the music industry as it exists today is pretty much on the fast track to obscurity. From how well they have embraced downloads, free music samples as advertisement, itunes, digital content and freedom, online advertisement, online music videos,
      • Of course, the paranoia doesn't help, and still leaves us with the question of what would be a realistic business plan they could follow.

        In times of change, one must lead not follow.

      • Re:Killing the Golden Goose (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Tsiangkun ( 746511 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @03:41PM (#14286842) Homepage
        The record companies followed the true American dream of quick profits at the expense of quality and longevity.
        The artists they promote are the musical equivalent of rubber dog shit, fake vomit and whoopie cushions.
        Good for a few moments of entertainment, but not really worth the money it costs.
        It's obvious the Artist of the day is just a new texture of vomit or a new scent of shit.
        That's why the industry burns through them so quick, they are disposable products to the execs.

        Given the mass bombardment of the crap on the airwaves, it's no suprise people don't buy CDs at
        the rate they used to. I'm sick of the crap the first week a new single comes out. Luckily that
        same single will still be on the playlist 3 years from now. The radio no longer entices me to get
        to the record store to buy the CD I want, it reminds me of why I haven't been to the record store since
        the 90s.

        Anyways, I don't know anyone who blows a hard earned paycheck on adding to their rubber vomit collection on a frequent basis.

        A realistic business plan ?
        1) Leave the faith based community. A lot of their statistics assume people want to own this crap.
              That in itself requires a greater leap of faith for me than the flying spaghetti monster.

        2)Join the real world. The music that will be worth promoting is on mix tapes being distributed underground, small clubs, and lately in peoples homes. Come up with a way to capture the home recording artist without taking advantage of them. The artist already figured out they don't need the record companies. $0.03 a sale from the industry execs for a million album sales at $20 an alubum is the same amount of profit as Ten thousand sales of CDs direct to the consumer when sold for $5 a disc.

        3) Profit less. We know how much a CD cost, we know how much color ink costs, we know how much the studio time costs.
              $18 for a CD is outrageous. This price is only supported because of the monopoly they have over the distribution channels.
        • The record companies followed the true American dream of quick profits at the expense of quality and longevity.

          Good Christ, what the hell does this mean? You could go back to the 50's at least and hear complaints like this, and maybe the 40's (think about how the oldsters used to wail about bobbysoxers and Frank Sinatra).

          The artists they promote are the musical equivalent of rubber dog shit, fake vomit and whoopie cushions.

          If there were a Beatles-caliber (say) songwriting team with even half the tal

          • They're in business to tickle the fickle prejudices of 14-year-olds. 'Twas ever thus.

            Well, no. The music business (and every other business in the USA) became interested in the "fickle prejudices of 14-year-olds" sometime in the late 50's-early 60's. That was when it became apparent that unlike earlier times, 14-year-olds (I use the euphemism to represent all "kids" from 5-early adulthood) had MONEY TO SPEND! Quite a lot of it, in fact. Enough to get the executives salivating at the thought of a mass

      • I'm sorry, what was that last bit again?
      • "First, We kill all the lawyers"
        Yeah, kill 'em all. Let's start with this one:
        On Dec. 13, attorney Fred Von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation published an open letter criticizing the company for its threat. [from the article]
        • "First, We kill all the lawyers" is from a shakesperian play (can't remember which one) and acctually refered to the lunacy of the actions on the part of one of the characters. The assumption being that lawyers are needed for society to run smoothly. Which is true... "In Theory" (I love those words) Seriously, if you get charged with a crime, are you going to defend yourself in court, or are you going to hier someone who knows the law. The problem comes with the ethical code. Lawyers are only responsible to

          • The problem comes with the ethical code. Lawyers are only responsible to their clients, that's it. There is no higher ethical code. Comparisons: If a bridge built by an Engeneer collapses and people die, the engeneer loses their licence to practise, and will probably face criminal charges. If a Doctor F*#!s up and a patient dies, same deal. A lawyer gets a mass murderer off through a loop-hole or technicality, and he has done a good job, here have a cookie... see the basic problem. (or supports some womans

          • Comparisons: If a bridge built by an Engeneer collapses and people die, the engeneer loses their licence to practise, and will probably face criminal charges. If a Doctor F*#!s up and a patient dies, same deal.

            Well, I don't know a lot about engineers and their licensing, but this seems pretty farfetched to me. Maybe in cases where it can be shown that the bridge collapsing was due to something the engineer did (or failed to do), then maybe.

            But doctors? I call bullshit. I don't have the cite in front of
    • Considering that they probably instructed their legal department to warn people who were infringing their copyrights in any way, I think it was reasonable for them to expect that the lawyers would know if it was illegal or not. Unfortunately, they forgot about the huge gap between what's illegal and what a lawyer thinks he can sue you for.

      Technically, they did not sue them, but these letters have a similar effect to most people without a lawyer on retainer. How far off is the day that someone has to pay wit

      • Technically, they did not sue them, but these letters have a similar effect to most people without a lawyer on retainer.

        I think this is true. From what I uncerstand, cease and desist (C&D) letters are easy and legal for lawyers to write, but they don't have the force of law. In many cases, it's basically a threat to sue if conditions aren't met.

        The unfortunate thing is that lawyers cost a lot of money and a person that hasn't made a broad social network to know what to do. Even if they do, finding on
        • It's considered a waste of court time if the lawyer does not write a polite (threatening) letter to ask you to C&D before they sue you.

    • Don't count them out yet ... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by khasim ( 1285 ) <brandioch.conner@gmail.com> on Sunday December 18, 2005 @02:54PM (#14286582)
      From the 2nd letter that was sent:
      Our solution will adhere to our shared belief that songwriters must be fairly compensated for their work and that legitimate web sites with accurate lyrics must not be undermined by unlicensed web sites.

      Emphasis added.

      If there is money to be made by "selling" access to lyrics, I think they'll try to get all other sites ruled as "illegal" because they are "unlicensed".

      I think they're still focused on getting every last cent they can from the public, in any fashion, for the music / lyrics / art / whatever.
      • The 'other' sites are violating copyright as the lyrics are copyrighted just as much as any other part of the song. Unlicensed sites distributing copies of said lyrics would be well open to being sued because theres little arguement that their operation could be made under fair use.

        While the music industry shouldnt gouge its customers for every last cent possible, why is there a sense of entitlement on the part of some slashdotters to everything that isnt bolted to the floor?

      • If there is money to be made by "selling" access to lyrics, I think they'll try to get all other sites ruled as "illegal" because they are "unlicensed".

        I think they're still focused on getting every last cent they can from the public, in any fashion, for the music / lyrics / art / whatever.

        I suspect they're sniffing for a way to establish a racket for print licensing somewhat similar to performance licensing. At first, I was surprised by the statement, "legitimate web sites with accurate lyrics mus

      • The title of a song is part of the creative work as well. Will they be suing anyone who mentions a song's existence?

      • You know 'cause I just sit around and read the lyrics without the music playing and without any interest in the artist's musical presentation. Hell I think that they should all give up their cheesy guitars, drums, and keyboards and just become poets. No one really wants to hear that crap.

        I can see why the music industry is so protective of "their" lyrics.

    • Re:Sad but (Score:5, Interesting)

      by quest(answer)ion ( 894426 ) <admin.mindofmetal@net> on Sunday December 18, 2005 @02:56PM (#14286592)
      reactionary it may be, but absurd it is not. Ritter's reaction to this whole 'cease and desist' business is exactly the effect they're looking to have with legalistic strong-arm moves: scaring small developers without the financial resources for a legal fight, preventing them from innovating in directions that will challenge the current--legally delineated--status quo as far as how music is published and distributed.

      IANAL, but lyrics are also copyrighted material, and someone needs to get permission from the owner of that copyright before doing anything with them. personally, i fail to see how reproducing the material with correct attribution (as in a searchable website or database with song lyrics) is problematic, but hey.

      the *real* point here, as others have posted, is not that this litigation was spurious, but that the "record company lawyers" actually successfully managed to make a reasonable call as to whether a bit of software was worth persecuting based not on the legality of its use of copyrighted material, but rather on whether that use of said copyrighted material was damaging. this actually represents a step away from blind legalism toward a more considered stance on what actually constitutes harmful copyright infringement. if this turns out well for pearLyrics, it might actually encourage development of online resources for music-related info.

      so kudos, thanks for not *totally* skewering a small developer.
    • The record industry, those companies that have for the past hundred years made big bucks selling audio recordings on lightweight disks, are on auto-pilot search-and-destroy mode. They have programmed their legal weapons to seek out and burn anything that looks, sounds, or feels like new audio technology. This is like The Terminator where self-programmed robots go out to hunt and destroy anything that is human.

      The record industry has set up their legal departments to automaticly hu
    • 3. Oh wait, you mean this application/service/person might actually be doing something legal/useful/beneficial to us??? oh ok we're sorry

      From what I understand it's more like:

      3. The EFF has noticed us in an open letter [eff.org] about certain facts like "that any legal threats by Warner/Chappell against U.S. software developers in connection with software similar to pearLyrics could expose Warner/Chappell to legal action in U.S. federal courts."

      Also, the software isn't available again; they didn't sue (this time?) b
    • Actually it's:
      3. People didn't like that we yelled at you. We are sorry for that - but your application/service/person is still illegal.

      They still want Ritter to make sure his widget only finds "legal" lyrics. Which is as good as unpossible

  • does what ?! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18, 2005 @02:33PM (#14286450)

    apology ? from who ? i..i...head explodes.....

  • The system still works every once in a while. Kudos for someone in the music industry recognizing that things like this help instead of hurt them.

  • New course for MBAs (Score:5, Funny)

    by ThatGeek ( 874983 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @02:36PM (#14286466) Homepage
    I have a new idea for an MBA course. It will be called "Don't prosecute your customers when they try to advertise your product". I'm not sure if we'll be able to fit it into a single semester though.

  • Where was apple? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 18, 2005 @02:36PM (#14286468)
    According to the article, Apple immediately removed the link to this software. With their teams of lawyers you figure they could have performed a proper review of the claim and seen it was just another case of Goliath bullying around innocent people.

    But lest we forget, Apple can never be wrong, even when your money goes to line the pockets of Bill Gates.

    • Re:Where was apple? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by dr.badass ( 25287 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @03:32PM (#14286786) Homepage
      According to the article, Apple immediately removed the link to this software. With their teams of lawyers you figure they could have performed a proper review of the claim and seen it was just another case of Goliath bullying around innocent people.

      Why would they bother? The link has virtually no value to Apple, and there is no incentive for them to throw their lawyers at somebody else's problem.

    • Re:Where was apple? (Score:3, Interesting)

      by wootest ( 694923 )
      Is it *proven* that Apple took down the software link as a direct cause of a nastygram and not because the author of the software told them to? Is it also given that Apple should be liable to protecting the products of others or to fix legal help for those companies? Even if I, like you, think it would have been nice if it had happened, I don't think that it's an inherent right that you have just because you get your app in a product listing, no matter what company hosts it. I also think that bringing down

  • Say Goodnight to the Bad Guy (Score:3, Interesting)

    by fohat ( 168135 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @02:38PM (#14286478) Homepage
    As an artist, I hope this becomes a trend where music companys realize that our music is art and not just small green pieces of paper. I'm glad that this guy got an apology!
    • The little green pieces of paper won that battle a long time ago.
    • But it wasn't really an apology, it was a justification for their actions. Oh sure, they said the tone and content of their letter was out of line--and at least they recognize this... However, what they really said, if you read between the words, is that they're going after the lyrics sites next, and that if his software points to unliscensed lyrics, he could still be ass-deep in lawyer-shit.

      One question: is there currently *A SINGLE* liscensed lyrics database/site, anywhere, even if its not free? Also,

  • That leaves Sony, then (Score:3, Funny)

    by slavemowgli ( 585321 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @02:41PM (#14286497) Homepage
    Good to hear that at least one company seems to have even the tiniest bit of common sense and decency left (even though they probably just did it because of the negative reaction they were getting, too, not because of a guilty conscience).

    Now I'm just waiting for an apology from Sony, too - although I have the feeling that it'll be issued at about the same time that Duke Nuken Forever comes out.
  • I'm willing to bet next they'll try suing someone for using a G to C chord progression. Oh wait, that's been done before. Maybe they'll try suing you for looking at a disc next. Why can't we just neutron-bomb these bastards out of existence and let our legal system have a fucking break?

  • hendrix (Score:4, Funny)

    by jollyroger1210 ( 933226 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (0121regorylloj)> on Sunday December 18, 2005 @02:44PM (#14286516) Homepage Journal
    Does this mean Hendrix stops kissing guys?
  • ad-laden websites that offer unlicensed lyrics and guitar tabs will soon be under attack.

    What the hell are they going to do considering maybe 85% of the tablature I've found on the net doesn't even work with the song I'm trying to learn anyways? "We're going to sue you for your interpretation/impression of this song that you've put into tablature and uploaded to the net."

    • Isn't tablature a representation of arrangement and not covered by the songwriter's/music publisher's copyright (which covers only melody and lyric)? Photocopying (or hand copying) a publisher's tablature book is clearly a no-no, but listening to the performance, working out the guitar parts and notating it using a commonly accepted method seems legitimate to this non-lawyer.

      Though, having recently read the admonitions on contemporary cds, I expect the legal beagles shortly will get on to adding that, alon

      • Isn't tablature a representation of arrangement and not covered by the songwriter's/music publisher's copyright (which covers only melody and lyric)?

        Tablature is a visual representation of a guitar part of a musical work. A single musical part that has been fixed in a tangible medium (such as a score or a sound recording) is still a substantial portion of a copyrighted musical work, and transcribing it from a sound recording is copying. Besides, don't tab sites list the tab side-by-side with lyrics so t

        • I'll take the point about lyrics. But listening to a bit of music and notating it is not copying. Listening to a bit of music and showing your band the chord changes and specific parts (as you might do in a cover band) is neither copying nor copyright infringement.

          • But listening to a bit of music and notating it is not copying.

            Yes it is. Listening to a recording and notating it is as much copying as listening to an audio book and typing every word into the computer.

            Listening to a bit of music and showing your band the chord changes and specific parts (as you might do in a cover band) is neither copying nor copyright infringement.

            Technically true because no fixation occurs.

    • powertabs is currently down for example due to this whole incident, olga is still up but who knows for how long...

  • Yeah, they're sorry (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Tim C ( 15259 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @02:54PM (#14286586)
    Sorry they got caught. Sorry people reacted the way they did.

    What makes me think that if no-one had noticed, they'd have taken this thing right through to the bitter end, even if it meant ruining the poor guy?
  • I just can't stand the huge media corporations anymore. I try to rent or borrow stuff as much as possible now, and only buy stuff that I have to have. Basically I am 90% boycotting them - I hope they, their legal teams, and their crappy, overpriced products all die out. The day when the RI/MPAA and others have died out and all music goes directly from artist to one or many online music store(s)/subscription service(s) will be a good day for us all. They are dinosaurs - big, mean, stupid, and unable to adapt
    • I try to rent or borrow stuff as much as possible

      I think it would be best to keep to borrowing from friends(at least until the RI/MPAA hires the FBI to track down that kind of thing). Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but I would be very surprised if the MPAA didn't make money off of blockbuster/netflix/etc. either on a per-rental basis or a monthly/quarterly/annual fee. If they didn't, then it must be legal to rent videos, or else the MPAA would have taken them to court for their money, which means it
      • You are right, they do make money, but less money than going to see a sucky movie in theaters or buying it on DVD. If it is new and I haven't seen it - rent. If it is slightly older but really good, then my friends already have it - borrow.
      • Actually, I'm almost SURE it's okay to rent out videos without any kind of fee providing that you legally own the physical video (a for real bought movie, not a copy) and that you're not aware of the renter doing illegal things with it (copying, playing for a paying audience, etc.).

        I am not a lawyer tho, so I dunno... I DO know that there are far too many mom and pop shops out there renting out movies for there to be TOO much hassle about it.

      • Re:Fuck em' all (Score:3, Informative)

        by JonWan ( 456212 )
        but I would be very surprised if the MPAA didn't make money off of blockbuster/netflix/etc. either on a per-rental basis or a monthly/quarterly/annual fee. If they didn't, then it must be legal to rent videos, or else the MPAA would have taken them to court for their money

        I wouldn't be suprised if Blockbuster is paying the studios on a per rental basis. A long time ago Blockubster cut a deal with the studios for low/no cost copies of movies in return for a pay per rental fee. Don't know if they still do o

      • I think it would be best to keep to borrowing from friends(at least until the RI/MPAA hires the FBI to track down that kind of thing).

        A larger public library would count as "friends", right?

    • NOFX - Dinosaurs Will Die

      It's about how "the parasitic music industry" is going to "destroy itself."

      I'm not gonna post the lyrics for fear of being sued ;)

  • Music Industry Apologizes? (Score:3, Funny)

    by TheNoxx ( 412624 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @03:11PM (#14286678) Homepage Journal
    And Bill Gates got Person of the Year from Time? Great, now the apocalypse really is on its way. Dammit.

  • Wha good are the lyrics without the music? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by unitron ( 5733 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @03:24PM (#14286745) Homepage Journal
    I've long suspected that, when it comes to sheer money lust, music publishers make the record companies look positively philanthropic.

    Back in the '60s the sheet music for a song cost more than the 45 RPM record, and you got 2 songs on the record and only one on the sheet music.

    One could spend their entire life and career tracking down all the songs that got included on albums not because they were good but because of who would make money because of owning the publishing rights.

  • One of the sad things... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SmoothTom ( 455688 ) <Tomas@TiJiL.org> on Sunday December 18, 2005 @03:28PM (#14286764) Homepage
    One of the sad things about this whole incident is that the music company seems to not even have tried to ascertain what the application was doing - it is merely a very focused search engine that makes it easier to find lyrics and attach them to purchased music.

    Another sad thing is the chilling effect on further development of anything associated with the music industry and music lovers in general. As was said in the article:

    One of Ritter's recent brainstorms -- an application that queries lyrics data online to help music fans choose tracks based on themes, like "love" or "breakup" -- may now remain only an idea, he says.
    A search feature like that could actually HELP the music industry (as well as listeners) by leading potential customers to new 'must have' songs for their collections.

    The short-sighted, overly litigatious folks in the music industry are the ones causing the majority of the problems for their industry. The world has changed over the last century, and they need to look ahead rather than behind in shaping their business.

    --
    Tomas

    • Yeah exactly, and also the fact was that it helped people as well. I mean, honestly who want's to spend hours looking for some lyrics just for one song?

      The meaning of these nice little programs is to help people be more creative and to work pro-actively with them to do that.

      Other programs such as mplayer ( http://www.mplayerhq.hu/homepage/design7/news.htm l [mplayerhq.hu]) let you watch loads of movies with lots of codecs and such, if ANYTHING this program would hinder the music industry more so than pearlyrics, my gue
      • Well at least the company apologised, I just wish they'd seen sense in the first place, ...

        Don't be too surprised when a month or two from now another manager at Warner Chappell has a company lawyer send Ritter another C&D letter for exactly the same thing.

    • In general non-technical people have a very poor understanding of what any piece of software does. Why should Warner Chappell be any different?

      Take this as what it is, a victory for common sense, and be magnanimous.

  • translation (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Ahaldra ( 534852 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @03:32PM (#14286789) Homepage
    [text text text] we are committed to working together to provide consumers a convenient, legal way to find accurate song lyrics.

    The goal of Warner/Chappell's prior letter to pearworks was to gain assurance that pearLyrics operated according to those principles[text text text]

    to me that reads:
    [fluff fluff fluff]Your program is illegal, next time we will criminalize you before we slap you with lawyer letters, so we are in a better position marketing the incident in our favour [fluff fluff fluff]

    Please tell me I'm wrong.

  • Don't be so kind to Warner/Chappell (Score:5, Informative)

    by surfingmarmot ( 858550 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @03:32PM (#14286791)
    RTFL from the EFF. It wasn't the volume of opinion or all your voices or a realization that pearLyrics might be beneficial to them or a conscience--it was the potential liability for damages from misrepresenting a non-infringement to the developer's ISP as an infringement that caught their eye. They would very likely have lost and paid out money not even adding the insult of losing in court and having that all over the web. They have no conscience--this was simply fear and greed in action. They had the legal tables turned on them, saw a potential loss staring them in the face, and gave up--defeat is not an indication of remorse or conscience--it is just defeat, no more, no less.
    • it is refreshing to see that at least one person can read the letter for what it really is

      it begins with a lie "Based upon our common goal of helping consumers "
      and ends with a lie "the benefit of consumers and artists"

      straight from RIAA Economics 101

    • According to this article [heise.de] (sorry, german only), the label apologised, but still considers the to be software illegal. From what I read from the article it appears that they consider software that searches for song lyrics illegal unless it includes a build-in lawyer that automatically purges unlicensed sites from the search results. I wonder how long it will take before they go after the big search engines.

  • Re: I'm sorry. no really... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Chaffar ( 670874 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @03:34PM (#14286804)
    Ritter says he hopes that talks with Warner will result in its return to the web.

    Dream on sucker... We just said that we're sorry, it's not like we MEAN it or anything.

    - Warner Chappell

  • The point of copyright is to encourage innovation (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bstarrfield ( 761726 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @03:59PM (#14286928)

    The current distortion of the copyright system (endless extensions to copyright, multinational corporations going after individuals) is beginning to defeat the entire frakkin' point of having copyright in the first place: the encouragement of ideas to advance literature, music, science, and technology.

    From the Wired article:

    One of Ritter's recent brainstorms -- an application that queries lyrics data online to help music fans choose tracks based on themes, like "love" or "breakup" -- may now remain only an idea, he says.

    An apology from Warner Chapell (dear God how many components of the Time Warner omni-media complex exist?) doesn't eliminate the reality that they would rather use copyright to ensure that technology develops only the way they want it to, extending their cartel into the far future. They've already won on the legal front - copyright extensions far past the death of the author - now they blatantly want to control technology through legal terror.

  • Even with the apology, it seems that the software is still not available.

    So it's like "Sorry we invaded our country, killed your citizens, but didn't find any Weapons of Mass Destruction - but hey, sorry! And no, we won't give you your country back until things are the way we want them."

    Until the software is back up, Warner can cram their apology up their ass.
  • This whole thing could have been avoided if they had shown that they know they have the power of the law behind them if they had put something on the site like so many of the newspages I read do. Here's a quote from Common Dreams, this little bt appears on the bottom of everry article they post, and very similar bits appear on many other sites.

    This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in

  • Hm. (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Matilda the Hun ( 861460 )
    Is it just me, or could that have been better written as Warner Chappell Apology to PearLyrics? If you don't know the names of the people involved, one would think that the person who wrote the program is apologizing for making it in the first place.
  • Zonk, you're on notice: -5 for duping a ./ article from days ago.

  • Discrimination For Hearing Impaired (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Hearing impaired people enjoy music too, but perhaps in ways slightly different than the main stream of music fans. I wonder if this action could be considered discrimination against the hearing impaired?

  • Comply? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by moxley ( 895517 ) on Sunday December 18, 2005 @07:24PM (#14287960)
    I have to say that it makes me queasy watching people who receive cease and desist letters just comply with them without puting up a fight; even if it is only until "a situation gets clarified." I am really mainly referring to cases where it is obvious that industry is trying to stifle free speech, or lock consumers into non open source alternatives - and especially where (like with nost of the RIAA lawsuits) they are trying to use their size and familiarity with the legal system (and staff of corporate lawyers) to try to simply intimidate citizens out of even attempting to fight for their rights.

    Warner apologized because they "feared protest." Yet the developer still seems to be too intmidated to put his app back online at this stage.

    Maybe that's not the case, I don't know - I have no idea what his personal situation is, and I am not tyring to suggest that he is spineless by complying with their order, maybe he just can't deal - I don't know and I do certain respect someone's right to respond to these things in whatever way makes sense for them personally...

      - but I do certainly hope that most developers, artists, free thinkers, and everyone else who uses the web and forms of digital media/media creation and distribution tools to express themselves in any way shape or form would fight this sort of abuse; I know I would - and I wouldn't comply with shit just after receiving a letter.

    If more people don't start standing up for their rights we're all going to get walked on, and there are plenty of bastards lining up to do it.
    • but I do certainly hope that most developers, artists, free thinkers, and everyone else who uses the web and forms of digital media/media creation and distribution tools to express themselves in any way shape or form would fight this sort of abuse; I know I would - and I wouldn't comply with shit just after receiving a letter.

      That's very easy to say when you're sitting behind a keyboard on a comfy chair. It's harder to say when you're holding a legal threat in your hand and thinking about your hou
  • It is all very well for them to belatedly admit they got it wrong for what ever reason:-) but what are they going to do to undo the damage that they have done, and where can I get pearLyrics from now?
  • Ok, let me get this straight...the guy made a program that helps find the lyrics to a song for Itunes users? I have yet to hear a cheap knock off song by someone in either the 1st,2nd and 3rd world because the "lyrics" were downloaded and read. They should just go and ban Karaoke machines and bars while there at it.
    • Places with jukeboxes and karaoke machines have to pay for a licence in most countries, so the music publishers have already sorted that out. Apparently, even stores selling musical instruments are supposed to have a licence, as a customer might play a few bars of a copyrighted song while in the shop, and thus commit a public performance of the tune.
  • Here [theschmoejoes.com].

    And I will continue to do so.

    I think 'working with' Warner/Chappel is making a deal with the devil. Their C&D and apology are worthless, as they do NOT own the rights to all lyrics.

    I own all the lyrics to my songs, all the music The Schmoejoes play, and Warner/Chappel can't claim ownership.

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