General Music Chat

AUGUST 24, 2009

Music Publishers Group Files Copyright Suit
By JAY MILLER

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125115323416955029.html

The National Music Publishers Association filed copyright-infringement suits against two businesses, including one owned by MySpace cofounder Brad Greenspan, that publish lyrics online for profit.

The actions are the music industry's latest salvos against what it sees as stealing content. Though the industry has been largely successful in its legal battles, the rise of Napster a decade ago was an early sign that the move to digital media had let the genie out of the bottle by allowing easy sharing over networks. Lyrics, though not as lucrative as the music itself, are also protected by copyrights.

"These sites are profiting on the backs of songwriters. It is unfortunate that copyright holders must so frequently divert energies to protect their rights to license and distribute their works," said David Israelite, NMPA president and chief executive. "However, the demand for music prompts a seemingly endless stream of illegal business models."

Peermusic, Warner/Chappell and Bug Music filed an action against LiveUniverse Inc. and owner Brad Greenspan in the federal court of the central district of California. The publishers also filed a similar action against Sean Colombo and Motive Force LLC in the western district of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Greenspan is one of the founders of MySpace, which is now owned by News Corp. He sued over that deal, saying it undervalued the social-networking site. Two years ago, Mr. Greenspan offered to buy a portion of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of this newswire, in an attempt to throw a wrench into News Corp.'s purchase of that media company.

The trade group said it has been sending cease-and-desist notices to hundreds of sites, most of which have complied. Live Universe and Motive Force weren't among those, the NMPA said.

"Music fans are the biggest losers when licensed businesses, like LyricFind, Gracenote and TuneWiki can't survive and prosper because unlicensed, illegal businesses are allowed to thumb their noses at the law," Mr. Israelite said.

Attempts to reach Live Universe and Motive Force weren't immediately successful

What's your opinion? Is this yet another absolutely frivilous lawsuit? Let's say I already have a CD of an artist, which I paid for, and there's no lyrics on the liner notes, and I can't figure out some of the lyrics. I go on one of these lyric websites and get the lyrics. HOW ON PLANET EARTH IS THIS CAUSING ECONOMIC LOSS TO ANYBODY? When will these frivolous lawsuiits end? This kind of crap makes me want to run for political office. I'm talking BIG political office. We NEED a third party, maybe call it THE PRACTICAL PARTY. The bulk of our hard earned money is DISAPPEARING into a BUREAUCRATIC BLACK HOLE. Doctors paying over half their salaries for MEDICAL MAPLPRACTICE INSURANCE? This SH*T has to STOP. I can't take it any more...

I hear ya brother!

I've said all along, that the genie is out of the bottle. The battles being fought over peer2peer file sharing are meaningless. Young people are growing up believing that free music downloads are their birthright. This is unlikely to change anytime soon, because MP3's are a saturated file type, and embraced worldwide, and en masse. Lyrics would be even harder to control. Impossible really. There are few places where free lyrics would suffer. Mostly magazines that provide song lyrics. Who even buys these anymore? Money is not being lost in songbooks over this, because no one buys these for the lyrics, they buy them for the sheet music.

If these sites were selling TANGIBLE items with the lyrics on them, like T-Shirts or Wall Plaques, I would understand the problem. But these sites are profiting from ad revenues alone. Nothing would stop the publishing companies themselves from creating "OFFICIAL" versions of such sites, with their own licensed material on them, and THE CORRECT lyrics in every case. They would kill these other sites by that alone, since MOST of these sites get lyrics from fan submissions, and they have typos and in many cases: WRONG LYRICS. But if the publishing companies marketed themselves as THE ONLY SITE for CORRECT LYRICS - ALL THE TIME, you would become the Go-To site for these lyrics. Once fans caught on that these are OFFICIAL SITES making accurate lyrics readily available, they would likely rule the lyric-site world. You could then sell ad-space, provide links to where to buy the music, require sign-up for downloadable lyrics which gives you direct marketing access to millions of musicians and fans, and any number of selling and marketing options, not the least of which is using song-lyrics for merchandise, where the artist and the publishing company are in the money again.

Like the major labels before them, they are REFUSING to embrace new models and get CREATIVE in their businesses.

Businesses that don't EVOLVE, die out eventually.
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Nary a damned thing wrong with the sharing of lyrics, & both these sites & the tab sites are often invaluable & LEGAL tools for the music teacher.

Flook 'em all, I say!

There's got to be too many attorneys. Not enough business to go around so those that are inactive sit and wrack their brains to come up with new ways to sue people. I heard an absolutely ridiculous story which I know from an insider is true. A VERY famous music superstar was incognito visiting a small bar in New England somewhere. There was a cover band there who by chance played one of his songs. He got the name of the band and bar-owner and SUED and won a nice chunk of change. I'm not going to reveal the superstar's name because some of you think he's God. All I can say is WHAT ECONOMIC LOSS DID HE ENDURE? He certainly wasn't going to perform at the podunk bar now that he plays venues such as Madison Square Garden. It wasn't like somebody was taking a job from him. I hear about sh*t like this and my blood boils. We have to get back to basics and IMMEDIATELY determine if ECONOMIC LOSS IS PRESENT and throw these frivilous lawsuits out the door. WE ARE ALL PAYING THROUGH THE NOSE IN INCREASED TAXES AND FEES BECAUSE WE ARE ALLOWING THIS NONSENSE TO OCCUR. IT HAS TO STOP. (P.S. I'll give you a hint on which superstar sued the tiny bar. His initials by complete coincidence are B.S.)

Oh bob! Say it ain't Bobby Sherman!

That's sad. I'm sure B.S. never played any cover tunes before his recording career got underway. If he did I just KNOW he paid each and every band royalties for every single playing, every single gig...I just know it...yeah right.

I talked to Van Wilks, Austin guitarist and formerly Mercury Records recording artist, now working with an independent label, several times. (He also toured with ZZ Top during the Tres Hombres era as opening act, and is still close friends with Billy Gibbons, good friends with Eric Johnson too) More than once I told him I had been trying to get bands I was in to play a couple of his songs, mainly Boystown, Bleeding for You and The Spank. He told me that would be great, one of the highest compliments he could think of was someone or a band appreciating his music enough to want to play it onstage. I eventually did get the band in Texas to start on Boystown and Spank It, then got a chance to make a better living and moved out of state before either was ever played onstage. Always wanted to get a recording of a show and send Van a sample of one of his tunes with yours truly on guitar and vocals. From his response I'm sure he'd like it, as long as it was done well.

Nothing would stop the publishing companies themselves from creating "OFFICIAL" versions of such sites, with their own licensed material on them, and THE CORRECT lyrics in every case.

Exactly right. Nothing is stopping them. Except themselves.

Funny thing is - they could do it for minimal investment. Putting up a website like that would be easy and cheap. But instead, they break out the lawyers... Now there's an expensive solution to a simple problem.