Comment by selmnoo | Hacker News Reader

Comment by selmnoo | Hacker News Reader

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So, the only reason RG in the first place was able to provide lyrics with no spam at no costs is because they were riding on VC money. Other lyrics sites have to make money somehow. But then you might say -- well, what does that matter to the audience? The answer is, usually the spam-free groovy train usually does eventually come to an end. Sites can go on for long periods of time serving straight up spam/ad-free content, but that always ends. Who knew what RG was intending to do after this ended? Would they have gone the Facebook route of datamining the hell out of Biebers fan to advertise them shit they don't need?

One last thing to keep in mind: Rapgenius was an unlicensed lyric site. They weren't playing ball on either side of the fence. Let's hope that a lyric site emerges that provides lyrics with at least acceptable, non-distracting ads, and serves licensed content. I really think merely going by this strategy will get you ranked high on Google.

It makes sense that a site needs business model to be sustainable, but Rap Genius is still searching for or developing their model. It does not appear to be based on displaying ads alongside lyrics, and that also is not the main point of their site.

Rap Genius was originally called Rap Exegesis, and while it has a lot of rap lyrics it is a community supported text annotation site, with an ambition far beyond a lyric repository. They have a great deal of content beyond rap, or even lyrics in general. They have poetry and literature, announcements, and press releases (I'd love to see them make a Rap Genius page of Ulysses with the contents of Ulysses Annotated). They have a platform and are building a community. That's why it's attractive to VCs, and that's why it's something beyond the eyesores one mostly lands on searching for lyrics.

I hate that lyrics have to be licensed for informational purposes. I think it's stupid.

writers (a.k.a the anonymous person who wrote your favorite songs) make their living writing those lyrics & deserve to be paid for their work

No one deserves to be paid simply for working. You might be the best X in the world but if the world doesn't value X then you don't get paid. Pay is earned by doing things people want to pay for, not simply by doing things. If people don't want to pay for music/lyrics then music/lyrics has no market value. You don't deserve anything.

Clearly there is value since there is demand. What you're saying essentially is that peoples right to pay what they want outweighs the creators right to set their own price for their creations. That's not the way the world works. Demand can dictate price to an extent in that the seller wants to maximize earnings but it doesn't dictate it absolutely.

These companies(RG, azlyrics, etc) are making money where their main product is the creative work of someone else. Damn straight that other person deserves a cut of the profits because without them there is no site.

> What you're saying essentially is that peoples right to pay what they want outweighs the creators right to set their own price for their creations. That's not the way the world works.

No, that's exactly how the world works for luxury items like music; demand drives, not supply. What the seller wants to charge means absolutely nothing if demand is elastic and consumers can simply stop buying. Demand sets the price, not the seller. Creators can set whatever price they like, and consumers can and will ignore them; if you want to sell something you have to set a price the market will actually bear.

> Damn straight that other person deserves a cut of the profits because without them there is no site.

No they don't; they got paid to write the song, they're done. The notion that a person deserves to be paid forever in secondary markets where people trade their creations is a perverse and absurd notion that exists only in the messed up modern world; it's wrong and it's stupid. You as an artist do not deserve to be paid every time someone makes a copy of your art; period. If I paint a copy of a Picasso, I don't owe the Picasso family anything and the same should apply to any other creation. Copies are not theft and the artist doesn't deserve anything.

The seller sets the price. People either don't buy it or acquire it without paying. But the buyers don't set the price. In this case the buyer is the website and they have to pay the price since they are using the product openly and publicly.

>No they don't; they got paid to write the song, they're done. The notion that a person deserves to be paid forever in secondary markets where people trade their creations is a perverse and absurd notion that exists only in the messed up modern world; it's wrong.

Who is this magically being that pays the writer to write the song exactly? It isn't a secondary market it's a primary market. The song writer has created something(A song!) and the site wants to use that song. They are dealing with the song writer or copyright holder that is a first sale.

That person deserves to be paid for what they have created which is what this is. Your job wouldn't exist without that belief and neither would mine.

> But the buyers don't set the price.

I never said they did, please do try and comprehend before simply repeating yourself.

> That person deserves to be paid for what they have created which is what this is.

False.

> Your job wouldn't exist without that belief and neither would mine.

This is a belief you hold, not a fact.

> No they don't; they got paid to write the song, they're done. The notion that a person deserves to be paid forever in secondary markets where people trade their creations is a perverse and absurd notion that exists only in the messed up modern world; it's wrong and it's stupid.

Whether or not a person deserves to get paid forever for their work is irrelevant to this discussion... The point is that someone is getting paid forever in this situation -- either the original songwriter or the owners of the lyrics site. I'll accept for the sake of argument that it shouldn't be possible for a person to monetize his or her work in perpetuity -- so then why the hell should it be allowable for an unrelated third party to do so?

> I'll accept for the sake of argument that it shouldn't be possible for a person to monetize his or her work in perpetuity -- so then why the hell should it be allowable for an unrelated third party to do so?

Ok, fair question. I didn't claim a person, be it first or third party, shouldn't be able to monetize anything; I said they don't deserve it, not that they can't do it. I'm disputing the sense of entitlement displayed by the use of the word deserve. No one, whether the creator nor the third party, is entitled to consumers money.

So it's ok to copy and resell books without compensating the author?

> they got paid to write the song, they're done.

In the vast majority of cases this is wrong. Most songwriters do not get paid to write songs. They get paid only when they receive royalties on the reproduction of their song.

This is good for society because it means that the songs that everyone likes will provide the most reward--so songwriters have a strong incentive to write the best songs they can.

If someone makes money off a copyrighted work, the copyright holder deserves to be paid.

No they don't; they might legally be required to pay, but legal != deserves. Copyright and patent laws are wrong and create artificial scarcity to create a monopoly where there should be none. Just because something is the law does not make it just or right; they don't deserve anything.

So you would do away with all non-physical trade?

Where did I say or imply this?

"Copies are not theft and the artist doesn't deserve anything."

That doesn't imply what you seem to think it implies.

Then clarify because so far all you've done is said "People don't deserve this! Copying isn't stealing. They shouldn't get paid for this" then when anyone challenges you they get the reply "Thats not what I meant" or some snarky comment about their comprehension.

Clarify what. I could send you a bitcoin, look, non-phisical trade. If you want to critique something, it's up to you to make a clear critique, not me to figure out what you mean when the words you wrote are trivially and obviously false. When you infer I mean things I didn't say, it's not snarky to point out I didn't say that or mean that. I said what I meant, deciphering meaning was not an exercise left for the reader, it's right there in the words I wrote.

You're wrong. Saying that music/lyrics has no market value is just as stupid as saying that just because I personally don't want to pay for a Mercedes Benz means it has no value, and I can take one freely.

Clearly SOME people are willing to pay for the right to use lyrics, ie. singers, record labels, etc. Just because a single individual, ex. rapgenius, doesn't want to pay for the music/lyrics, which they legally are obliged to do, doesn't mean that music/lyrics have no market value. There is a market value which has been established, and which people pay for. It just means that if they don't pay for the lyrics, they are stealing it.

> You're wrong. Saying that music/lyrics has no market value

Well since I didn't say that, you're wrong.

You're right -- no one deserves to get paid simply for working (i.e. creating a work). But everyone deserves the opportunity to sell that work. When someone else takes what someone does, it diminishes the value of that opportunity. Copyrights protect that opportunity.

> But everyone deserves the opportunity to sell that work.

We agree.

> When someone else takes what someone does, it diminishes the value of that opportunity.

No it doesn't, those people wouldn't have paid anyway. Copying is not theft. This is the same tired argument the MPAA's been trying to make and it's just a sign of the establishment not adjusting to the new reality that distribution is not a profitable industry anymore.

> No it doesn't, those people wouldn't have paid anyway.

You can't know all of the ways they will possibly make money from the content. Justin Bieber may want to charge Apple more for including vetted lyrics in iTunes. But why would Apple give Justin Bieber money when they can just copy the content from Rap Genius? Or cut a deal with Rap Genius for a feed?

> distribution is not a profitable industry anymore

This is where you're missing the point. You see the price as paying for distribution, but it's really about the value of the content. Historically, the two were inextricably linked by a physical medium. Now they are completely separate things with different prices and costs, and are almost unrelated to one another. Just because one goes close to zero, doesn't mean the other does, too.

Nor do I care about the ways people like to think up to ban other people from doing stuff. If you don't want your work copied, don't publish it. The whole copyright/patent system is a ridiculous absurdity based on the false premise that creative people require monetary incentive to do anything. When technology renders enforcement of laws impractical, then the laws are simply bad. Copying is not theft, creators are not entitled to anything, they deserve no protection for their published works at all.

Art doesn't have to be a business and art will be created regardless of whether artists can profit in perpetuity from their work. The notion that ideas and words are property and can be owned is perverse doublespeak meant to trick people into transferring their gut instincts about physical property onto things that quite simply are not property.

Performers should make money from performing, not being paid forever because the government created artificial monopolies on words and ideas.

Are you for real? The world values the lyrics/songs, and are searching for them. There is a system in place to compensate artists, and "OMG DISRUPTION PIGGYBACK" is getting really tired.

Commenting on established artworks with a cute little javascript popup doesn't add anything to the original art. If I want to check lyrics, I am looking for the lyrics, not a popup that shows a picture of a ham when I hover over 'ham'. RG doesn't even have good content, just a bunch of smartass nonsense and obvious comments.

> The world values the lyrics/songs

Never said they didn't, try understanding what was sad before flying off the handle.

Are you saying that songwriters deserve to be paid whenever I simply want to know what the lyrics of a song are? That doesn't make any sense to me.

Are you saying writers of books deserve to be paid whenever I simply want to know what their book says?

Could you provide an example that is even more unrelated? This one is still about writing...

(Seriously though, this is something absolutely different)

Its exactly the same, just a matter of length of the content.

Are you saying writers of poetry deserve to be paid whenever I simply want to know what their poem says?

Is that close enough for you to see the similarity, or do I need to explain how songs and poems are functionally indistinguishable and further how poetry and prose is functionally indistinguishable; and therefore how written works are functionally indistinguishable and if you support copyright in one but not the other your perspective is logically untenable?

Or perhaps you'd like to explain to me why a poem should lose its written copyright rights when someone sings it.

Songs are (in general) not "musicized" poetry. It's closer to a movie. People work on it and it sells as a whole. Lyrics + music + singing or screenplay + scene + acting (simplified). I don't see why I should pay anyone for quoting a movie. Nor I don't thing lyrics of a song are worth anything as standalone. Those who wrote the screenplay/lyrics have deal with owner of the final product and are paid from that (or were paid once and that is one extra reason to not pay them over and over).

RG shows ads.

Where?

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