“The manner in which the industry has reacted to technological change in the past seven years shows that the people running these companies clearly have their heads in the sand, and some of their actions reek of stupidity and unadulterated greed,” said Jarad Carleton, an analyst at Frost & Sullivan.
 The fight over online music piracy has become a war of words following the Music Publisher Association’s (MPA) announcement that it will begin playing legal hard ball with Web sites that provide access to unlicensed lyrics and sheet music.The MPA, the oldest music trade organization in the country, represents some of the leading players among the nation’s 26,000 music publishers. The nonprofit said it will begin issuing takedown notices to lyric sites in January.In a BBC News interview, MPA president Lauren Keiser said his goal is not just to shut down the sites and levy fines, but also to get authorities to “throw in some jail time,” which he believes will make the group’s campaign “a little more effective.”Lyrically Misunderstood While purveyors of lyrics online, such as lyricfreaks.com and lyricsfree.com, might altruistically think they are performing a much-needed service, in reality without any formal agreement with the entity that owns the rights to the lyrics, they are as guilty of copyright infringement as a site offering pirated music.Many site owners were unaware that they were in violation of copyright laws until they received cease-and-desist letters from the publishing division of Warner Music last week.According to Keiser, owners of fan sites featuring lyrics need not worry about finding themselves on the business end of a cease-and-desist letter. The MPA is taking action on the large lyric disseminators. The whole business model of those sites, Kieser said, “is based on exploiting copyrighted material that they do not have the rights to.”Music publishers claim that until the Internet, Xerox machines were the greatest threat to a songwriter’s income. However, the existence of thousands of sites providing lyrics, sheet music, and tabs without paying royalties on them have greatly impinged on the songwriter’s earnings.”Unauthorized use of lyrics and tablature deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing,” David Israelite, president of the National Music Publishers’ Association, told the BBC News. “Music publishers and songwriters will consider all tools under the law to stop this illegal behavior.” Sing Along Online music providers argue, however, that obtaining the rights to lyrics is not as simple as just writing a check. They say it often is unclear what company owns the rights to a song. And with thousands of music publishers in business, the process of obtaining a legal copyright becomes even murkier.Added to the confusion over ownership is the apparent support of the unauthorized lyric sites by popular services in the music-download industry. Apple’s iTunes, for example, connects users to several free lyrics widgets. |
