Yahoo is expanding its online music section to include the lyrics of 400,000 songs, hoping to strike a chord with Web surfers looking for a more reliable alternative to Internet sites that publish the words without the permission of the copyright owners.
Song lyrics have been available through scores of other websites for years, but most of those destinations are technically breaking the law by posting the words without the approval of the publishers and writers that own the rights.
What’s more, many of these unauthorized lyric sites rely on contributions from outsiders, a communal approach that increases the chances for inaccuracies.
Yahoo’s song lyrics, in contrast, are supposed to be the official versions. Under the licensing agreement, Yahoo will share with copyright holders the revenue from the ads that will be displayed alongside the lyrics.
The 400,000 song lyrics included in Yahoo’s database span about 9,000 different artists, ranging from old standbys such as The Beatles and Bob Dylan to more recent stars like Radiohead and Beyonce.
Nearly 100 music publishers are contributing song lyrics, including industry heavyweights BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner/Chappell Music.
Yahoo is hoping its database stimulates even more traffic on its music service, which is already the most popular on the Web. Yahoo music attracted 22 million U.S. visitors last month to rank it ahead of AOL music (17.5 million visitors) and MySpace music (14.8 million visitors), according to comScore Media Metrix.
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