Sunday, December 11, 2005
Looks like pearLyrics creator Walter Ritter may want to count himself lucky that he got off with a cease and desist. The music publishing industry has announced plans to go after copyright infringers in a big way, and they want to jail the operators of web sites that publish song lyrics and sheet music. Authorities should "throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective," Music Publishers Association president Lauren Keiser told the BBC. While this is a case of a business having an apparently legitimate complaint — sheet music and lyrics are copyrighted works — the response appears to be typical music-industry overkill. Let's just hope the publishers stick to their plans to go after "very big sites," and doesn't start demanding that teenage kids who run Britney fan sites be dragged off in cuffs. (Then again, maybe a little jail time is what they need to convince them that their taste in music is questionable at best.)
