Gracenote, Publishers Sign Groundbreaking Lyrics Licensing Deals

Posted in News on July 19, 2006

Digital entertainment technology company Gracenote announced it has signed agreements licensing lyrics rights from many of the world's leading music publishers, taking a giant step in bringing the most extensive set of legal, accurate song lyrics to consumers. Through the agreements, Gracenote has obtained rights to all the available lyrics from the North American music catalogs of BMG Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, peermusic, Famous Music, and dozens of others. Collectively, these music publishers own rights to the lyrics of more than one million compositions. These licenses pave the way for the first legal mass commercial use of lyrics, which is an important step in enhancing the consumer digital music experience, while protecting the rights of songwriters and music publishers.

Gracenote will launch a lyrics service later this year enabling digital music retailers, mobile providers, search engines, music portals and consumer electronics manufacturers to offer legal access to an accurate and comprehensive lyrics catalog. The service will initially be available in North America.

As part of the licensing program, independent publishers and songwriters will also be able to "opt in" via a website and have their lyrics made available through Gracenote's service. This is a breakthrough in enabling smaller organizations or even individual artists to have their important content made available to millions of fans and to be properly compensated for its use.

Music publishers can click here for more information and to enroll in the program.

SOURCENews TAGS Rights Management Artists peermusic