pearLyrics: too easy to be legal?
updated 06:10 pm EST, Tue December 6, 2005
pearLyrics shut down
, a Mac OS X tool for displaying song lyrics of the track currently being played in iTunes, is no longer available due to a cease and desist order from Warner/Chappell Music. "As a freeware developer I can not afford to risk a law suit against such a big company, although personally I don't see where pearLyrics should infringe any copyrights handled by them," pearLyrics creator Walter Ritter said today. "After all pearLyrics only searches and accesses publicly available websites, displays, and, at the users wish, caches its content."
"I feel very sorry for all users of pearLyrics who provided me with such great feedback - I would have loved to provide them with even further enhanced versions," Ritter said.
The legal threats by Warner against Ritter are part of a larger campaign by the company to rid the Internet of lyrics websites. "What disconcerts/disappoints me most is that now, after fighting against illegal filesharing (something I can fully understand) and trying to shut down lyrics sites, Warner/Chappell seems to want to dictate Internet users what applications they are allowed to use for searching and browsing content on publicly available websites," Ritter said.
"I am not sure if they actually checked pearLyrics for what it does, or if they just thought, hey, let's try and just send a cease and desist letter, after all, this is just a little freeware developer and he won't risk standing up against us anyway," Ritter complained.
A quick check at Apple's widget download center also reveals that most of the lyrics widgets are gone now, too.
Ritter has asked that anyone in the online community with any legal advice regarding this topic to contact him with suggestions.
Mac Enthusiast
Joined: Sep 2000
From the mu$ic companies
to their customers:
You are a criminal. Even though you already paid our exorbitant prices and we were forced by the US government to pay some money back because of price fixing, YOU ARE THE CRIMINAL.
I no longer listen to mainstream music. I've found a world of indie music that I wouldn't have found if it weren't for the RIAA, so thank you RIAA for turning me off from commercial music!! I now go to 2-3 concerts a week and spend even more money on music that isn't produced or in any way associated with the RIAA. SO SUCK ON THAT big music.