Yahoo! adds Lyrics to its Online Music Section

Internet powerhouse Yahoo! Inc. has joined hands with digital media company Gracenote to launch an online lyrics service that would offer the largest catalog of legal, licensed song lyrics to Yahoo! Music’s consumers, apparently trying to combat unauthorized, rogue Web sites.

Beginning Wednesday, the lyrics of 400,000 songs from all five major publishers will be incorporated into Yahoo! Music through Gracenote’s growing database, a significant move that Yahoo hopes would cater to Web surfers seeking a more reliable alternative to Internet sites that publish lyrics without express permission from copyright owners.

Touting the free service as the Web's largest legally licensed database of lyrics, Ian Rogers, general manager of Yahoo music says, “Finally, a free, legal and definitive way to settle a bet with the guy sitting next to you at the bar who is certain the Ramones’ most famous anthem declares, ‘I wanna piece of bacon.’”

Apparently, song lyrics have been available through scores of other Web sites for years, but most of those portals are technically breaking the law by posting the words without the approval of the publishers and writers that own the rights. Moreover, these unlicensed sources often provide inaccurate and incomplete lyrics and do not compensate composers for their work.

In contrast, Yahoo is offering the song lyrics in a legal manner, and under the licensing agreement will share the revenue from the ads that will be displayed alongside the lyrics with copyright holders.

The 400,000 song lyrics included in the database of Yahoo will cover about 9,000 different artists, ranging from old standbys such as The Beatles and Bob Dylan to more recent stars like Radiohead and Beyonce. The songs will be contributed by nearly 100 music publishers including industry leaders like BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner/Chappell Music.

Yahoo’s deal with the digital media company Gracenote to launch an online lyrics service follows an agreement last summer between music publishers and Gracenote, giving latter company the rights to lyrics from the North American catalogs of Bertelsmann AG's BMG Music Publishing, Vivendi's Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, jointly owned by Sony Corp. and Michael Jackson, peermusic and other publishers.

Gracenote had been working on its Lyrics program for more than two years, with the mission to build the first and most comprehensive database of legal, accurate song lyrics for consumers.

Publishers have embraced the company's plan to create a lyrics database because they felt lyrics are an untapped resource at a time when consumers are increasingly getting them through various rogue sites, according to Craig Palmer, Chief Executive Officer of Gracenote.

Headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, Yahoo! Inc. hopes its database will stimulate even more traffic on Yahoo! Music, which is already the most popular on the Web.

Yahoo’s online music service offers more than 2 million songs for download as well as the tools to manage, explore and share music. Nearly 22 million Americans last month visited Yahoo music, ranking it ahead of AOL music and MySpace music, which have attracted 17.5 million visitors and 14.8 million visitors, respectively, according to comScore Media Metrix.

Founded by Stanford graduate students Jerry Yang and David Filo in January of 1994 and incorporated on March 2, 1995, the American computer services company has become a leading global Internet brand and one of the most trafficked Internet destinations worldwide.

Yahoo's popularity has increased manifolds, from the time it has come into operation and so has the range of features it offers, making it a kind of one-stop shop for all the popular activities of the Internet.

Emeryville, California-based Gracenote, formerly known as CDDB, is a global leader in embedded technology, enriched content, and data services for digital entertainment solutions within the Internet, consumer electronics, mobile, and automotive markets.

However, the details of the Yahoo deal were not disclosed but officials said it was a variable revenue-sharing agreement based on advertising.