If you're looking for lyrics online, you have a new legal option as of 3pm pst today: music.yahoo.com, which just augmented its market-leading music website with a lyrics search licensed through Gracenote. You can search for a given song and click on lyrics, or Lyric Search to find a song based on a known snippet of lyrics, which gives users a new way discover music based on a few words -- sort of like asking a record store clerk if they have the one that goes:
This sounds like it will be helpful, and could give lots of people a new reason to visit Yahoo Music.
The deal includes music from the top five music publishers plus some indies: "BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing,
Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music, and dozens ofprominent independent publishers." One possibly pitfall that could result from people knowing that these lyrics are legally licensed is that the feature could be perceived as some sort of sellout by music fans who have learned to associate "legal" with "lame."
Yahoo rightly points out that the unlicensed lyric sites wereriddled with pop-up ads and inconsistencies, inferring that itsoffering will give users a less intrusive experience (it launches here in about two hours). In addition, the announcement adds additionalindie cred by including an audio clip of Mike D talking about lyricsand a blog post that will cite one of Yahoo Music GM's Ian C. Rogers' earliest online experiences: posting Beastie Boy lyrics on Usenet.
You'll be able to read Rogers' blog post and listen to what Mike D has to say here at 3pm pst. For now,though, Yahoo might want to look at removing its directory of unlicensed lyrics sites.
