Song lyrics will some be available for all for free.
Yahoo has announced a service which will include the lyrics to 400,000 songs by 9,000 artists, ranging from the Beatles and Bob Dylan to ABBA and Kylie. Nearly 100 music publishers, including BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, and Warner/Chappell Music, have signed up to the deal
Music lyric searches are a popular on the internet so the service hopes to cash in on the demand by charging for any advertising accompanying the lyrics. It has been estimated that within 10 years the revenue from licensing lyrics this way would reach $100m a year, boosting the current worldwide music publishing revenues, estimated at $4bn annually.
The logical next step is the guitar cords, and music sheets which have also be long sort out by every aspiring musician. What is interesting is that if book publishers were to do the same with poetry there would be an uproar. Where does relaxation of DRM and free advert models such as these go. They certainly change the rigts , royalty relationship. Perhaps we are moving towards a You Tube world where being seen and heard are the more important first base and payment is far more like achieving a home run and these are hard.
Other sites, such as Google and iTunes, Are expected to follow suit.
