LyricFind has unveiled a slew of new deals.
Printed Music Licensing Limited (PMLL) first confirmed the news. A wholly owned subsidiary of the Music Publishing Association (MPA), PMLL has over 70 music publisher members.
The subsidiary struck a deal with the Toronto-based lyrics aggregator firm for 63 of PMLL’s publishers in the UK.
The deal comes two months after some rather embarrassing news for the aggregator firm. Apple partner Genius caught LyricFind ‘red-handed’ lifting its lyrics, using a clever system of embedding alternating hash marks into its homegrown lyrics. Lyricfind then supplied Google with the stolen lyrics; the Genius-planted hashes spelled out ‘Red Handed’ in morse code.
Spinning the outright theft, the lyrics aggregator firm wrote,
“It should be reiterated that Genius themselves have no ownership of the lyric rights – music publishers and songwriters do. Genius sources lyrics from user submissions, and those users may not be transcribing from scratch. LyricFind has a fifteen-year history of proper licensing and payments to rightsholders, and we’re extremely proud of our role in creating this valuable revenue stream for songwriters. We’ll continue that mission.”
Yet, not everyone was convinced with LyricFind’s excuse. As one user told the embattled lyrics site,
“Your argument is basically ‘Everyone is copying the same person’s homework,’ then telling the teacher that everyone else is actually copying their homework.”
Despite the scandal, the Department of Canadian Heritage Export Canada recently confirmed funding for the lyrics aggregator firm. As part of a two-year project, the lyrics site will support licensing, transcription, and translation of Canadian artists as well as Canadian songwriters’ lyrics.
Speaking about the new deal with the embattled aggregator firm, PMLL explained that the agreement will bring publishers’ catalogs into LyricFind’s global lyric licensing system. The firm will, in turn, pay rightsholders for every lyric display, lyric translation, and article of merchandise featuring lyrics.
PMLL says this “direct relationship with key publishers is invaluable in maintaining an accurate and sustainable lyrics licensing environment.”
Rogert Singerman, Senior Vice President of International Publishing at LyricFind, explained,
“We’re excited to work with these important UK publishers and songwriters in major new territories and to enable them to legally distribute, exhibit, and monetize their lyrics through our 60+ platform partners.”
Hopefully, this new agreement no longer includes outright theft.
Featured image by LyricFind.