Wednesday, October 05, 2005

RANT: Six Monthes in Jail for Posting Lyrics Online!?

I'll tell ya, I am not the biggest fan of the corporate recording industry, especially when they can't get their heads out of a hole long enough to see the future. Now it seems that they've taking to sentencing a French lyrics website operator to 6 months in jail for posting "copyrighted" lyrics. As a musician, I clearly understand the copyrights owned by both the publisher and the songwriter, but to press the legal rights for this seems insane in my book. I remember the days of sitting down with a piece of paper and 'reverse engineering' a song to learn the chords, notes and lyrics (in the days of 8 track tape players and vinyl, no less). Should we make today generation go through the same pain? (learning the skill of listening and writing, not using 8 track tape - may it rest in piece). It's my belief that there is little harm in posting the "correct" lyrics, if anything it's one more viral marketing opportunity. I would say that the sheet music for a song is different entity, but lyrics? Come on. It's the naughties baby, and the world is evolving around us (well everything but the huge record companies it seems).

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