Lyrics Websites Get Hit With Takedown Notices

posted in: Music News

We’ve always taken it for granted that you could Google a favorite song and find a dozen websites with the full lyrics, plus chords and tabs, if you wanted them. Seemed like useful group-sourced information, the kind of thing the Internet was made for. Well, what most people have never considered is the motivation for sites to host this content. That is, money. Content is content, and if you’re getting traffic on your site, you can probably monetize it.

One person who did consider this is David Lowery, frontman for Cracker and Camper Van Beethoven, university lecturer, and noted music business critic. He submitted a report to the National Music Publishers’ Association (NMPA) on these unauthorized sites using copyrighted lyrics to generate traffic. The NMPA has, in response, issued takedown notices to 50 sites, including RapGenius.com, LyricsMania.com, and StLyrics.com. Lowery’s report suggests that “it is possible that unlike the sound recording business, the lyric business may be more valuable in the Internet age.”

RapGenius, for their part, have tried to set themselves apart from the other sites targeted by the NMPA in describing their content as an interactive, crowdsourced lyric project, rather than simply a display of other peoples’ work.

[h/t Fact]

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