Song lyrics go legit

As reported several months ago on A-Lyric, the music business and web companies have been searching for ways to do business with song lyrics. In an interesting deal, the music database company Gracenote has signed deals with hundreds of publishers and will start integrating approved lyrics into a range of services. The idea is to include lyrics as part of download services, such as iTunes, RealNetworks or 7Digital. This would make finding the correct lyrics far easier for users, while also increasing the interest in legal downloads.

Working out the deal, as anyone who has dealt with publishers will know, was not easy. In some cases, the publishers didn’t have copies of the actual song lyrics. So Gracenote employees had to transcribe them from recordings. Yup, just like the amateur sites.
For a longer discussion of the use of lyrics on websites, type “pearLyrics” in the search box.