p2pnet - rss feed: PearLyrics author gets apology
p2p news / p2pnet: Warner Chappell chairman Richard Blackstone and lawyer Jane Dyball have privately and publicly apologized to Walter Ritter, the man who wrote PearLyrics.
But MPA (Music Publishers’ Association) president Lauren Keiser, who thinks web pages with the words to songs should be shut down and that the authorities could also, “throw in some jail time,” isn’t changing his mind.
“PearLyrics was a clever and simple application that searched users’ files and the Web for lyrics to import into their iTunes folder,” says Billboard.
Warner Chappell fired a Cease & Desist missile at Ritter and, “W/C’s action, and the attendant press response, drove the application off of Ritter’s own site and into peer-to-peer land, where it will almost surely be downloaded at far greater rates than it had been pre-hubbub,” says Billboard.
That’s kinda like what happened when the Organized Music cartel’s RIAA started sending subpoenas to people for allegedly downloading copyrighted songs from the p2p networks and other independent resources instead of its owners. Until then, file sharing was virtually unknown. Now, it’s a practice that’s growing by the hour and RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) efforts to halt it are failing miserably.
“W/C’s apology was the right move, but may have come as a result of a publicly posted argument from the Electronic Frontier Foundation,” says the story.
“Not only was Ritter’s application probably legal in the United States, reasoned the EFF, but such threats against U.S. developers could open Warner Music Group to federal liability.”
Interestingly, “Major rights holders confronted with these grass-roots software developments might also consider embracing them as possible new business models as aggressively as they have been in recent years about shutting them down,” Billboard goes on.
“How many casual music fans currently pay for lyrics? And how much revenue might be derived from working to shut down illegal lyric sites and monetizing, at incremental, almost afterthought-like rates, applications such as Ritter’s? (Another possibility, from EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann: Let fans acquire lyrics for free, since publishers are paid when CDs or downloads are purchased.)”
Here’s the fulsome Warner Chappell letter from Ritter’s site:
Based upon our common goal of helping consumers enjoy the song lyrics they want - and our common belief that technology can help to transform the music industry to the benefit of consumers and artists alike - 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. However, in both tone and substance, that letter was an inappropriate manner in which to convey that inquiry. Warner/Chappell apologizes to Walter Ritter and pearworks.
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.
We look forward to working together, and to helping to advance the evolution of the music industry cooperatively for the benefit of consumers and artists alike.
“I would like to thank Fred von Lohmann from EFF for all of his efforts as I think his open letter to Warner/Chappell was very important to clarify the legal situation,” says Ritter.
“Also a big thank you to all of you who have sent me those encouraging mails to keep going on, thank you very much.”
And ———————- today is Ritter’s birthday, so:
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday dear Walter
Happy birthday to yooooooooooo : )
But wait!
“There is a 1935 copyright registration for Happy Birthday, but the melody Good Morning to All was formally published in 1893 as part of a collection, registered in October 1893, and is public domain by U. S. statute,” says kuro5hin. “(you just can’t use the ‘Happy Birthday’ lyrics in public without paying)”
Meanwhile, Dog-in-the-manger Keiser told Billboard, “in January, the MPA will start targeting five or six lyrics (or guitar tab) sites that make money from ‘illegally trafficking copyrighted materials’ with cease-and-desist orders.
And he says he won’t be talking to site owners with possible partnership deals in mind.
“If someone was robbing your bank,” Billboard quotes him as saying, “would you go to them and say, ‘Hey, let’s split the cut?’ It is this very same perspective - justified, perhaps, yet ultimately stifling - that has stalled the music industry again and again during the digital revolution.”
jail time - Shut down online lyric sites!, December 9, 2005
Billboard - Publisher Apologizes To Online Lyrics Tool , September 15, 2005
publicly posted - Lyric sites and jail time, December 14, 2005
kuro5hin - Exposing the Happy Birthday story, July 5, 2003
December 17th, 2005 at 1:34 am
“and our common belief that technology can help to transform the music industry to the benefit of consumers and artists alike”
right….
“sites that make money from ‘illegally trafficking copyrighted materials’”
you sure they’re making money from those materials, or is the revenue derived from ads on the same page as the lyrics posted? gotta admit, they *do* use interesting terminology that looks nice.
is it just me, or is it everytime that they use flawed terminology that the subsequent analogy is very flawed too? thinking of sharing versus stealing (posting lyrics vs robbing a bank).
December 17th, 2005 at 2:24 am
So their bluff was called. They were told you proceed and we will hand you your head on a platter. Back to the drawing board boyz.
It is a shame the cartels over-reach hasn’t resulted in the same results but they are bigger fish with deep enough pockets to finance an aquarium featuring legal sharks as the main attraction. What the EFF can’t do, previous and potential customers (who long longer think they qualify as the consumers that corporation speak believes they should be classified as) are doing better at saying no thanks. The unexpected help of Sony on the DRM issue was much appreciated and continues to be as a results of Sony only owning up to it in the US while the rest of the world gets to enjoy the dubious benefits of the rootkit. (A wonderful xmas gift to give your loved ones’, isn’t it?)
Till Sony found it would get the benefits of a computer security fraud lawsuit from NY as a results of those infected cds still on the market after announcing the recall in a most carefully worded statement that had no mention of the word recall in it, Sony’s recall was in word only on the internet. In the rest of the world, those cds are still for sale. Sony neithers admits to doing wrong, nor do they act as if they have any thought other than maximizing profit through either sale or through data gathering benefits from any that discover the rootkit later. Unlike the MPA, which felt that it might be off the hook for this by public apology and private apology, the labels have yet to recognise they have crossed the border into the unacceptable, nor have they yet to make it right with the customer. Until then, I see no reason to buy a product with more hassles than it is worth to the buyer.
December 17th, 2005 at 9:41 pm
I call for ‘Seperation of Entertainment and State’!
They took God out of politics (sorta), public schools, etc… Because it has a specific adgenda, why should Big Entertainment be treated any different? The Entertainment Industry is so deeply entrenched in Washington I would not be surprised to see a passing vote to move D.C. to Hollywood in the near future.
Hollywood is so entrenched that the courts are affraid to make proper decisions in the fear that it will set a standard that would destroy a market… Maybe they need to set a standard to force the industry to comply with public demand. Just like they did with wiretapping and colleges, ISP’s etc… or forcing Cable to TV to upgrade to a digital signal… Why is this not feasable? I guess too many politicians don’t want to lose those ‘complimentary’ *wink* *wink* tickets so they can take their mistresses to Lindsy Lohan.