Music Industry Wants Jail Time for Lyrics and Tabalature Websites
As someone who plays guitar, websites such as mxtabs.net or tabcrawler.com come in handy when I want to learn a new song by any of my favourite bands. And as someone who listens to music, I often find myself visiting azlyrics.com to know what the artists are saying, however it seems that these sites are under attack from legal action.
The Music Publishers’ Association (MPA) says such unlicensed publication is illegal and that closing websites and fining their owners is insufficient punishment.
MPA president Lauren Keise said: ‘throw in some jail time I think we’ll be a little more effective’.
Keise added that the photocopier had hit songwriters and composers’ incomes but that the Internet ‘is taking more of a bite’.
Keise’s remarks follow legal action earlier this week against the developers of software that searches the Web for lyrics. Walter Ritter was forced to withdraw one such application, pearLyrics, after receiving a cease and desist notice from record company Warner/Chappell Music.
The president of the National Music Publishers’ Association, another US body, backed Keise’s call.
‘Unauthorised use of lyrics and tablature deprives the songwriter of the ability to make a living, and is no different than stealing,’ he said.
Personally I find this to be the most pathetic and inept way to stop something that isn’t really a problem.
emery said,
January 3, 2006 at 12:38 pm
Hmmmm, political correnectness gone waaaay too far.
What a bunch of wankers! It’s lyrics for chrissake! So what if we understand what the artist’s saying? What are we gonna do rip off their lyrics? Any self-respecting muso wouldnt dream of claiming a already written song as their own.
Ahh well “it’s time for a revolution”, I say we all start downloading heaps of music, tabs and lyrics, and we’ll over-whelm the law. they can’t deal with 4.5 billion people worldwide in jail.
This stuff is killing me, most people who write tabs are musical prodigies(?) who listen to the song, recognise the notes and write them down in tab format. The tabs sites even warn the writers and users not to write or use tabs from books. At the top of 5 out of 10 tabs it says, “this music was written by a musician for scholarship or to further the musicians musical skill” or something like that.
How annoying.