Lyrics Sites Illegal? - Interview with Darryl Ballantyne

Darryl:
Yup, but that will change in the very near future.

Darryl:
Yes, this is something that will have to change, but not to the extremes seen in the past (like the changes made to lyrics.ch when it came back after being shut down). Our clients are required to use basic copy protection such as disabling cut/paste/print/view source functions, but not to the extremes of using Flash apps or images to display lyrics, or other methods that make sites so frustratingly unusable they may as well not even be there. The publishers we're working with have been very understanding about this and have bought in to the idea of making sites work without forcing major changes upon them.

Darryl:
I won't comment specifically on the attitudes of publishers. Some of them have been good, others have been bad. But since we haven't been robbing any banks, we haven't gotten that specific comment :)

Darryl:
Yes, for sure. And part of the reason is LyricFind (yeah, it's partly our fault). With the advent of companies like LyricFind that aggregate content and licensing and make it very, very easy for sites to license the content and operate legally, there will be more of an enforcement push. The biggest reason there was no enforcement before was because there was no alternative for illegal sites - they'd shut a site down but really gain nothing from it (arguably, they would lose promotional value). Now that lyrics are beginning to be monetized, there is real value being lost to these sites, which will cause the publishers to step up enforcement.

It was an inevitable occurrence - I'm actually surprised it took this long (especially since we first tried to do it in 2000/2001, and ILS tried in 1999). Publishers certainly have a right to enforce their copyrights, and be compensated for their use.

That being said, publishers need to realize that lyrics sites are a reality, and regardless of the level of enforcement, there will always be sites operating offshore or underground, and they need to work with them rather than against them - and for the most part, the publishers we're working with DO realize that. Not only that, we've managed to structure deals with them in a way that allows us to offer content (and excellent meta data, thanks to our partnership with All Music Guide) at a rate that allows them to continue to operate on an ad-supported model and turn a profit. We're not out to put lyrics sites out of business, and neither are our publishers. It would be silly to just shut down all these sites (that are currently serving over a billion pages a month, and bringing in many, many millions a year in ad revenue), and despite what anyone says, they all realize that.