In one corner stood hopelessly out-lawyered pearLyrics creator Walter Ritter, an Austrian developer whose application cleverly searched the Internet for the lyrics to songs playing on iTunes. The application would then automatically append the lyrics field of the ID3 tag for a particular song.
In the other corner stood more-than-amply lawyered publishing giant Warner-Chappell Music.
Fly, meet Buick.
Suing file-sharers is apparently so 18-months-ago that the music industry, in dire need of something new to justify their hefty legal retainers, has taken aim at sites that offer "unauthorized" lyrics and unlicensed song scores. The Music Publishers' Association (MPA), which represents US sheet music companies, said it will launch its first campaign against such sites in 2006. MPA president Lauren Keiser told the BBC that shuttering websites and imposing fines aren't quite sufficient, saying if authorities can "throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective." Ho, ho, ho.
Ever loathe to let facts get in the way of a good jihad, Warner-Chappell conveniently overlooks the fact that, rather than reproduce lyrics, Ritter's software merely searches publicly available sites that do.
So, one cease-and-desist order later, down goes pearLyrics. One wonders how quickly Google would have folded its cards.
"As a freeware developer I can not afford to risk a law suit against such a big company, although personally I don't see where pearLyrics should infringe any copyrights handled by them," Ritter wrote. "After all pearLyrics only searches and accesses publicly available websites, displays, and, at the users wish, caches its content. Something that can easily be done with any combination of search engine and webbrowser too."
In an update, Ritter proves himself a good sport:
"Please try to understand Warner/Chappell, they are only trying to ensure that their artists get compensated for what they are doing - after all, it's their job."
1. He is correct in his analogy: Google, Yahoo and MSN also Cache Content - as well as Web Archive. :?
Pehaps it was the Cache-ing that gave them their rationale. They probably have NO idea of the techie-technicalities.
If he is based in the USA - he could start with the American Civil Liberties Union, and if they are NOT able to help him, they will refer him to an interest group of a Pro-bono team.
What is probably happening is the High Priced Attorneys have to give their Corporate Clients Executives, the "Numbers" PERCEPTION of an R.O.I.
(Board Meeting #1: What have you accomplished so far? - Presentation)
Understandably, the Artists have to earn a living - but if this "Blanket" vigilante-ism gets out of control - there will be a Backlash, for sure....
Posted at 6:00AM on Dec 19th 2005 by Search Engines Web