U.S. digital entertainment company Gracenote on Thursday said it obtained licenses to distribute lyrics as music publishers mulled legal action against Web sites that provide them without authorization [www.lyrics.com and www.azlyrics.com]. [Source]
Where does it end? One day will I be sued because I linked to pcmag.com without asking and paying a royalty to create the link? I know that is not the same thing as posting all the lyrics to a song but what will be the last dominoe to fall?
Enjoy these blog entries re: your link lawsuit proposal.
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2006/03/mystery-dada-tomato-threats.html
continued here:
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2006/03/disappointingly-not-dada-at-all.html
and concludes with an email midway through this post:
http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/2006/03/wheres-neil-when-you-need-him.html
Enjoy…
Oh, by the way, occasionally the evil tomato picture will show up on the picture rotation to the right of Neil Gaiman’s blog so watch for it to add context to the links.
Coincidentally, I had an email from a company once asking me to remove a reference to their website from my resume. I’m not sure if it was actually linked or not but let’s assume it is. That would be free marketing. One more link toward better Google page ranking. Business must be really good when you are asking other people not to advertise.
I have long since quit associating websites with my resume because the minute you hand the work to the client, the site degrades. Their cousin’s newphew taking an html class in high school changes the code. Another company comes in to make a small modification and ruins your work. A designer throws tables into the works.
Oh, you think your scenario hasn’t happened already? Perhaps you missed it a few years back when Ticketmaster was suing websites that pointed directly to the “purchase tickets page” for a specific site or venue and not their homepage without their permission. It seems you can only direct people where to buy the tickets for a certain show or location if you pay them for the “priveledge” of sending business to them.
However, I never consider anything done by the RIAA to be a slippery slope as most people seem to acknowledge that they are a crazy out of control bunch that are using the Internet as an excuse for their lousy financials, when they need to look inside, like why you would give say a K-Fed {{shudder}} a contract. Throw money at him because he “might” have a hit album. Times have changed and the RIAA like an old dinosaur is having trouble adapting.
And allow me to say how right you are about some web sites (OK most of them), once you turn over and lose control of a project, almost always within 6 months you usually would rather not have you name associated with them. Either because of what the site looks like “now” or (and this happened to me far too much at the end of the Dot Bomb) you wind up being associated with “dead pool” sites.
[…] On July 15 I said it was coming. Tom Maszerowski shows us it is here! OLGA.net, The On-Line Guitar Archive has been served a take-down notice from the NMPA and MPA (whatever the hell they are) referencing the DMCA as grounds. OLGA’s crime: making text files with the chords of songs available for download. How this violates the DMCA beats me. […]