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Comment by jcutrell | Hacker News Reader

This is really quite silly to me.

Lyrical content can't be "sold" to consumers - it can only be used in promotional material. I can't imagine how anyone would be able to calculate damages for punitive action, but I can't imagine that it's very easily demonstrable, except directly to the licensing company who would supposedly otherwise be paid the licensing fees.

To me, this resembles a flailing music industry fishing for revenue.

At the same time, the published material itself is certainly copyrighted.

Does anyone believe these sites are, in any way, not helping the artists?

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OTOH, when a site wraps ads around lyrics, why should all of the ad revenue go to the site and none to the songwriter? Effectively the lyrics are being "sold" in exchange for the user's attention.

That is true under a maximalist interpretation of copyright. On the other hand, what is really being sold here is the transcription and search-ability of the lyrics (and in RapGenius's specific case the community-contributed critical analysis of the lyrics).

Since the near total majority of people who will be reading the lyrics already posses a copy in audio form it seems unfair, in anything other than a maximalist context, to pay for them twice.

RG, and the others, rely pretty much exclusively on song lyrics to pull traffic from Google.

It's impossible to know who possesses what song in audio form, and it's up to RG if the pass that cost on to their users if they wish to.

>Since the near total majority of people who will be reading the lyrics already posses a copy in audio form

If you mean "legally possess", I very strongly doubt that's true...

It's not maximalist to say that a website cannot make a copy of something for someone who owns the item in another form. That right to copy belongs to the copyright owner, not the person who owns a copy.

For argument's sake let's say you are right, that it is not maximalist. That would imply there is a more extreme interpretation that would qualify as maximalist.

Can you describe what that interpretation might be? What is more extreme than saying without exception that the "right to copy belongs to the copyright owner, not the person who owns a copy."

Meanwhile, I'll just leave this right here: http://www.ripshark.com/

Considering the fact that numerous artists on Rap Genius comment and participate on their and other's lyrics, I would imagine that the artists certainly see a benefit. (http://rapgenius.com/verified-artists)

Agree. Silly and not a huge deal. Beyond that, buying the rights wouldn't be expensive.

"obtaining a blanket license to “re-publish” lyrics online from someone like musiXmatch starts around $20k/year."

Doesn't sound too bad for a company that raised 17M.

Beyond that RG still has a ton of room to expand into other areas.

If the cost really is only $20k, I find it hard to believe that RG finds this small price to be unreasonable...

I imagine RG considers it unreasonable because they consider what they are doing to be fair use. As such, any amount above $0 could be considered unreasonable.

Not only that, but RG has also gotten a ton of positive feedback from artists.

The question is this: Do the founders wish to be provocative and make a point about the music industry, or do they want to avoid friction? After watching a few interviews with the founding team, I wouldn't be surprised if it was the former.

Would it be fair use to put the script of every movie and TV show online?

There is no way that any specific licensing source, or even handful of licensing sources, is comprehensive.

If you accept that this use does not qualify as fair use then in good conscience you can only display the lyrics for which you have purchased a license. That cripples the coverage you can provide by making it too resource-intensive to seek out a licensing agreement for the lyrics of more obscure songs.

The keyword is "starts". RapGenius has millions of page views, and musiXmatch's API pricing is "variable and based on volume and needs".

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