Where did the initial seeding of all the lyrics & bands come from? Also, are most of the new lyrics contributed by users and if so how do you handle authenticating that the lyrics provided are accurate?
My license provider has a database of over 1.2M lyrics.
But matter of fact is that Directlyrics hosts only around 10k. A decision made early on to focus on less pages compared to competitors that needed to rank 1M+ paghes.
Why does https://www.directlyrics.com have a TITLE of "Azlyrics" and an H1 of "Azlyrics" but http://www.azlyrics.com seems to be an entirely unrelated web site? The latter is typically what I end up at when I search for song lyrics if I click one of the first few links (though if I want to read some amusing analysis, usually there is a Genius.com link a few below).
Yes, good eye. A great example of continuious testing SEO opportunities.
What if Google would start ranking directlyrics on specific 'azlyrics' queries? I haven't seen it happen yet, but if it worked... expect it to be reverted next week.
It's AZLyrics's responsibility to police their own trademarks, so it's okay, unless they say it is not in a C&D letter.
So it's legally okay, as far as we know.
Still a dick move, though. It's not okay in my opinion. But I'm not the one who may gain or lose thousands of dollars by deciding whether or not to do it, either. I can't say for certain whether it would be okay or not from outside my comfy judgment armchair.
It's blatant, intentional trademark infringement for direct commercial gain. IANAL, but I would think this might result in something quite a bit more expensive than a C&D -- like a lawsuit with punitive damages.
ETA: and now the site owner is on record here on HN stating that the intent was to steal search traffic. I'm sure this is a cutthroat business ... but this is an open invitation for one's own throat to be cut.
It's actually pretty aligned with the traffic graph shown.
Exceptions are months (e.g. around Christmas) where my advertising partner would be able to attract up to 3x revenue from the same amount of traffic as the month before.
Serious question: is this theft of IP? I know if a songwriter writes a song, you need to license it in order to perform it for profit, but are the actual lyrics intellectual property?
"The copyright law of the United States provides for copyright protection in
“musical works, including any accompanying words,” that are fixed in some tangible
medium of expression. 17 U.S.C. §102(a)(2). Musical works include both
original compositions and original arrangements or other new versions of earlier
compositions to which new copyrightable authorship has been added.
"The owner of copyright in a work has the exclusive right to make copies, to
prepare derivative works, to sell or distribute copies, and to perform the work
publicly. Anyone else wishing to use the work in these ways must have the permission
of the author or someone who has derived rights through the author.
note: Copyright in a musical work includes the right to make and distribute the
first sound recording. Although others are permitted to make subsequent sound
recordings, they must compensate the copyright owner of the musical work under
the compulsory licensing provision of the law (17 U.S.C. §115). For more information,
see Circular 73, Compulsory License for Making and Distributing Phonorecords.
"Copyright Protection Is Automatic
"Under the present copyright law, which became effective January 1, 1978, a work
is automatically protected by copyright when it is created. A work is created
when it is “fixed” or embodied in a copy or phonorecord for the first time.
Neither registration in the Copyright Office nor publication is required for
copyright protection under the law.
Lyrics are copyrighted. Musical scores may be separately copyrighted. Individual performances or recordings of music and lyrics together may also be separately copyrighted.
Typically, the latter is pursued by recording companies, because that is the IP they own or exclusively license. The rest is rarely handled by the individual rights-holders, as they usually just let ASCAP or a similar organization handle the business and litigation end, and just cash the royalty checks.
Licensing the lyrics should be a whole lot cheaper than the music or a specific recording. So it would not cost a lyrics site as much to be fully legit as it would for a music streaming site. Likewise, it may cost less to license a cover band to perform something than to license the recording made of it by a famous group, if the song was not actually written by them. This is why ABC's Dancing With the Stars uses so many covers, but obviously still uses recognizable recordings where Disney already has or can cheaply obtain a performance license.
> Likewise, it may cost less to license a cover band to perform something than to license the recording made of it by a famous group, if the song was not actually written by them.
You could even pay the original artist to perform it. The recording is what's licensed, not all performances by that artist. On Spotify I've seen quite a few older artists re-recording their old hits, presumably because they get more money if they themselves own the license to their own cover.
That makes sense, I didn't think of it like that. I was thinking that since the value is in the performance, that that's where the protection would be.
It sounds like all the competitors were in the same boat at the time. Likely the issue is that no one had a license to the lyrics and the ever slow to catch up record labels weren't doing it either. So it created this space that asked for filling, even if illegally.
>I feel like starting a business with a massive theft of other people's intellectual property isn't a great model to follow.
This is the basis of essentially every single huge successful consumer application/website over the past decade. There's really only 3 ways to make money on the internet it seems. IP theft, advertisement, and selling physical goods.
Well back in 2004 there was no way to get an actual license. Most lyrics sites claimed to be safe under DMCA or "Educational Use".
Only up until the publishers stood up for themselves, the industry shifted slowly.
So it goes without saying that you're not one of those people who has committed the monstrous act of singing Happy Birthday without paying to license the performance rights?
Or have you perhaps also lead a less than pure life (as viewed by the RIAA)?
Yes, I have sung Happy Birthday but I don't remember starting a business making money off of it and then bragging.
Yes, I have downloaded music in the past but I knew it was wrong and never used mental gymnastics to justify it. I simply did it because I didn't want to pay. Haven't done it in about a decade though.
IMO it takes greater mental gymnastics to justify the current copyright laws which extend far past the life of the author than it does to justify a lyrics site. The current law is almost exactly what Jefferson was worried about when writing about US copyright in its initial form—it locks up vast swaths of modern culture and even that of nearly a century ago.
It's absolutely crucial to understand that law and "right" from an ethical standpoint are not necessarily the same, though that is the ideal state to strive for.
> So it goes without saying that you're not one of those people who has committed the monstrous act of singing Happy Birthday without paying to license the performance rights?
But, none of the copyright claims on that were valid so, how is that a monstrous act, even in an absolutist view of adherence to legal copyrights?
This is great to see! After 80 years a key piece of shared culture is finally free. I hadn't realized this news.
It is kinda insane that it took until 2015, though. I still somehow doubt that people who get on a high horse about lyrics sites and IP waited until someone with deep pockets was able to fend off a lawsuit in 2015 to sing the song, though.
A more apt comparison is downloading an image that is still under Copyright (Mona Lisa is public domain, though photos of it may not be), getting a high quality print made at a local print shop, hanging it in your living room, and charging people $5 to come look at it.
In this example, there is a tangible personal gain from violating the intellectual property rights of somebody else.
It ain't theft, true, but it ain't a legal business model.
Except he wasn't charging them to see it. He had a huge neon sign in the background that he was being paid to have in his house, and they got to see the mona lisa for free. If they happened to see the neon beer sign as well, then awesome.
Right, intent matters, so if host-homeboy knows he can profit then he's in on the graft. Your logic reminds me of people who try to defend themselves in court without any legal background.
The outcome of your hypothesis, legally speaking, is that the person thinking they're winning is going to lose their fucking house as an accessory. Game, set, match IP infringement.
Most very successful businesses are government monopolies or oligopolies, and are the result of the state continuously interfering on their behalf over a period of decades or more. Sometimes multiple times. At least here in France.
The really big companies are France Telecom/Orange, GDF/Suez, Total, BNP Paribas, Sanofi, EDF and Societe Generale, maybe Renault. All fit this pattern. None are the result of innovation, the closest would be Sanofi and Renault up until WW1.
I have not yet been to another country where it was different.
Negotiating with the record labels from the get-go before even having a popular site sounds like it would have never resulted in a profitable company. The record labels don't give two shits about whether their licensing deals are equitable. They likely would have tried to gouge the small startup, possibly preventing it from ever growing.
It's hard to bootstrap some models without a lot of money. Even with money, it's not obvious there is a market until people prove it via piracy.
For example, Crunchyroll is the least terrible anime streaming site and they got started by stealing anime that was "stolen" by folks that wanted to put decent subtitles on shows from Japan.
They eventually hired some of the folks they were stealing subtitles from, and got licensing deals from the content owners once they had revenue. But they never would have been able to negotiate a deal if they'd have asked for permission instead of forgiveness.
It's entirely possible to imagine that another streaming company (Netflix, Hulu) would have looked at all of the great quality subtitles being produced by non-content owners and figured out that there was revenue to be had. But I fail to see how they would have seen the demand if people hadn't been stealing and making good subtitles to begin with, and producing huge numbers of stolen downloads/streams.
No different to starting a company that lets people get cheaper rides while avoiding taxi restrictions or one that lets you find cheaper places to stay by avoiding hotel and zoning laws.
A lot of successful startups and internet businesses are done on a 'break an awkward law first, ask for permission later' kind of way. There's a reason a common startup mantra is 'it's better to beg for forgiveness rather than ask permission'.
And yes, YouTube is another obvious example here. Wouldn't have been anywhere near as popular if it was so strict on copyright right from the start.
I think republishing someone else's work without permission them is morally wrong, but offering a taxi ride is only wrong insofar as it is illegal. One is a good law protecting content creators, the other is crony capitalism. So I think there is a difference.
The taxi market differs between countries, but in those markets where the regulations are there to protect the riders and drivers, ie minimum wages, proper tax handling, health insurance, passenger's insurance, etc, Uber is morality wrong in just the same way.
I guess a lot could be said these days about the profitability and future prospects of Spotify, but their music catalogue in the early days beta was at least partially sourced from Piratebay and other torrent sites. [1]
Considering the deals they later made with the record companies, it does indeed seem like asking for forgiveness rather than permission could be the best strategy, as was noted by some of the comments in this thread.
It was pretty clear that others would be next. Hence unlicensed wouldn't be maintainable.
Next to that, I wanted to sell advertising to big brands. My advertising partner insisted we needed to be licensed for the Coca Cola's of this world to spend money on my traffic.
So for me it was an opportunity to increase revenue, at the costs of lower profit margin.
I think the commenter's question was more about _how_ you did it :) (Thanks for answering questions here btw)
Did publishers just reach out to say "hey, pay this fee"? Or did they straight up start with lawsuits/C&D? Or did you reach out to them and say "hey I got this site, how much do I pay you to become licensed?"
So I went out and found licensing pro-actively. I wasn't contacted before in a formal way. But I know they (NMPA) did sent C&D letters to over 40 domains eventually.
Unlikely. First you go to ASCAP, then all of its competitors. For artists that don't use a rights clearance and royalty processing company to handle that stuff, you might just wait to get a letter from their attorney and offer a reasonable settlement based on the ASCAP rate.
Tracking down loose artists on your own initiative just to give them enough money that they won't track you down and sue you seems like an overly honorable use of time and money to coexist with a successful business.
There are 3 main record labels (Sony, Universal, and Warner) which own pretty much the entire market. So just 3 contracts to negotiate (or 4 if you include EMI pre 2012).
Great story. I worked as your competitor with metrolyrics about 5 years ago. It was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. I think you put the correct amount of effort in, added some value and moved on nicely. Much kudos
how much has rapgenius taken away from you? i know i used to land up in one of many crappy lyrics sites, such as yours, because those seem to be the only places to find them but these days i mostly stick to rapgenius for its clean interface. i imagine rapgenius's rise must have done some damage with their clearly superior technology?
It's also cool that artists will jump on to elaborate on their own lyrics. Here's Eminem talking about his hook in 'Rap God'
https://genius.com/2566991
Read the whole article waiting to find out how he got the lyrics and was disappointed. An article on a website selling content should at least include the source of the content.
82 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 219 ms ] threadBut matter of fact is that Directlyrics hosts only around 10k. A decision made early on to focus on less pages compared to competitors that needed to rank 1M+ paghes.
What if Google would start ranking directlyrics on specific 'azlyrics' queries? I haven't seen it happen yet, but if it worked... expect it to be reverted next week.
So it's legally okay, as far as we know.
Still a dick move, though. It's not okay in my opinion. But I'm not the one who may gain or lose thousands of dollars by deciding whether or not to do it, either. I can't say for certain whether it would be okay or not from outside my comfy judgment armchair.
ETA: and now the site owner is on record here on HN stating that the intent was to steal search traffic. I'm sure this is a cutthroat business ... but this is an open invitation for one's own throat to be cut.
If the company hasn't registered it, and doesn't enforce it, it is not a trademark.
[0] http://tess2.uspto.gov/
http://www.klemchuk.com/30-trademark-infringement-by-meta-ta...
'How I let other people create so I don't have to work'
The biggest revenue hit was the decline of ringtone revenue.
Exceptions are months (e.g. around Christmas) where my advertising partner would be able to attract up to 3x revenue from the same amount of traffic as the month before.
From what I understand, they are selling pirated papers.
But yet everyone in [0] is ranting and raving about how awesome it is.
Oh HN how fickle you are.
Piracy when it suits you. A-OK. When it doesn't, the pitch forks come out. No surprise here.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14868033
"The copyright law of the United States provides for copyright protection in “musical works, including any accompanying words,” that are fixed in some tangible medium of expression. 17 U.S.C. §102(a)(2). Musical works include both original compositions and original arrangements or other new versions of earlier compositions to which new copyrightable authorship has been added.
"The owner of copyright in a work has the exclusive right to make copies, to prepare derivative works, to sell or distribute copies, and to perform the work publicly. Anyone else wishing to use the work in these ways must have the permission of the author or someone who has derived rights through the author. note: Copyright in a musical work includes the right to make and distribute the first sound recording. Although others are permitted to make subsequent sound recordings, they must compensate the copyright owner of the musical work under the compulsory licensing provision of the law (17 U.S.C. §115). For more information, see Circular 73, Compulsory License for Making and Distributing Phonorecords.
"Copyright Protection Is Automatic
"Under the present copyright law, which became effective January 1, 1978, a work is automatically protected by copyright when it is created. A work is created when it is “fixed” or embodied in a copy or phonorecord for the first time. Neither registration in the Copyright Office nor publication is required for copyright protection under the law.
Typically, the latter is pursued by recording companies, because that is the IP they own or exclusively license. The rest is rarely handled by the individual rights-holders, as they usually just let ASCAP or a similar organization handle the business and litigation end, and just cash the royalty checks.
Licensing the lyrics should be a whole lot cheaper than the music or a specific recording. So it would not cost a lyrics site as much to be fully legit as it would for a music streaming site. Likewise, it may cost less to license a cover band to perform something than to license the recording made of it by a famous group, if the song was not actually written by them. This is why ABC's Dancing With the Stars uses so many covers, but obviously still uses recognizable recordings where Disney already has or can cheaply obtain a performance license.
You could even pay the original artist to perform it. The recording is what's licensed, not all performances by that artist. On Spotify I've seen quite a few older artists re-recording their old hits, presumably because they get more money if they themselves own the license to their own cover.
This is the basis of essentially every single huge successful consumer application/website over the past decade. There's really only 3 ways to make money on the internet it seems. IP theft, advertisement, and selling physical goods.
There's also no way to hang the original Mona Lisa in your house but that doesn't mean you get to steal it.
Do it if you want but don't ignore that pretty simple fact.
Or have you perhaps also lead a less than pure life (as viewed by the RIAA)?
Yes, I have downloaded music in the past but I knew it was wrong and never used mental gymnastics to justify it. I simply did it because I didn't want to pay. Haven't done it in about a decade though.
It's absolutely crucial to understand that law and "right" from an ethical standpoint are not necessarily the same, though that is the ideal state to strive for.
But, none of the copyright claims on that were valid so, how is that a monstrous act, even in an absolutist view of adherence to legal copyrights?
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-happy-birthday-s...
It is kinda insane that it took until 2015, though. I still somehow doubt that people who get on a high horse about lyrics sites and IP waited until someone with deep pockets was able to fend off a lawsuit in 2015 to sing the song, though.
In this example, there is a tangible personal gain from violating the intellectual property rights of somebody else.
It ain't theft, true, but it ain't a legal business model.
The outcome of your hypothesis, legally speaking, is that the person thinking they're winning is going to lose their fucking house as an accessory. Game, set, match IP infringement.
The really big companies are France Telecom/Orange, GDF/Suez, Total, BNP Paribas, Sanofi, EDF and Societe Generale, maybe Renault. All fit this pattern. None are the result of innovation, the closest would be Sanofi and Renault up until WW1.
I have not yet been to another country where it was different.
For example, Crunchyroll is the least terrible anime streaming site and they got started by stealing anime that was "stolen" by folks that wanted to put decent subtitles on shows from Japan.
They eventually hired some of the folks they were stealing subtitles from, and got licensing deals from the content owners once they had revenue. But they never would have been able to negotiate a deal if they'd have asked for permission instead of forgiveness.
It's entirely possible to imagine that another streaming company (Netflix, Hulu) would have looked at all of the great quality subtitles being produced by non-content owners and figured out that there was revenue to be had. But I fail to see how they would have seen the demand if people hadn't been stealing and making good subtitles to begin with, and producing huge numbers of stolen downloads/streams.
A lot of successful startups and internet businesses are done on a 'break an awkward law first, ask for permission later' kind of way. There's a reason a common startup mantra is 'it's better to beg for forgiveness rather than ask permission'.
And yes, YouTube is another obvious example here. Wouldn't have been anywhere near as popular if it was so strict on copyright right from the start.
Considering the deals they later made with the record companies, it does indeed seem like asking for forgiveness rather than permission could be the best strategy, as was noted by some of the comments in this thread.
[1]: https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files...
It was pretty clear that others would be next. Hence unlicensed wouldn't be maintainable.
Next to that, I wanted to sell advertising to big brands. My advertising partner insisted we needed to be licensed for the Coca Cola's of this world to spend money on my traffic.
So for me it was an opportunity to increase revenue, at the costs of lower profit margin.
Did publishers just reach out to say "hey, pay this fee"? Or did they straight up start with lawsuits/C&D? Or did you reach out to them and say "hey I got this site, how much do I pay you to become licensed?"
Tracking down loose artists on your own initiative just to give them enough money that they won't track you down and sue you seems like an overly honorable use of time and money to coexist with a successful business.
- Gracenote (they sold their lyrics licensing to lyricfind)
- Lyricfind
E.g. Google and Bing also license their lyrics offering through Lyricfind.
I only deal with them.
And as I was reading this I was humming Springsteen to myself
"Glory days, well, they'll pass you by
Glory days, in the wink of a young girl's eye
Glory days, glory days"
Turns out directlyrics doesn't have those lyrics. Google however returned them at top of the search homepage.
And... wow!
TIL there is a version of this great song with a verse that was not included in the original 80s version.
"My old man worked twenty years on the line
And they let him go
Now everywhere he goes out looking for work
They just tell him that he's too old"
Here's the video: https://youtu.be/P5-IoEcolp8
Glory days!
But its always fun to remind them that Justin Bieber & Ed Sheeran are their top traffic sources.
> an LA-based company that was run by a self-proclaimed co-founder of MySpace
I've met several people in southern california that say they are myspace co-founders. Why on earth is myspace the go-to mark for them?