Google Announces LyricFind Partnership
June 28, 2016
Struggling to understand the lyrics of that new hit song?
Hate when someone riding in your car mispronounces the words... and then tries to argue over the wrong lyrics?
Well, a new solution is just a few clicks away.
Lyrics to more than 4,000 music publishers will now be available on Google Search. The world’s largest musical lyric licensing service announced a partnership with the internet giant to boost offerings to musicians and fans with the touch of a button.
LyricFind – which licenses lyrics in more than 100 countries – will add lyrics to search results and inside Google Play Music. Its associated publishers include Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV, and Warner/Chappell Music Publishing and Kobalt.
The announcement is the latest in a string of positive forces for the music industry that will help boost revenues for musicians and increase accountability in the intellectual property space.
Here's why LyricFind's partnership is bigger than you might think.
Technology Brings Transparency
Based in Canada, LyricFind's partnership with Google is set to expand far beyond the American markets. By working directly with Google, it reduces a person's need to visit the wealth of different lyrics sites that are inundated with pop-up advertising or aim to capture a user's information.
“We’re happy to expand the depth and quality of lyrics available on Google’s services,” LyricFind CEO Darryl Ballantyne said this week. “We’re working together to make lyrics available to a larger audience in a faster and more efficient way.”
The company sees itself as a solution to a bigger problem for musicians: It aims to establish a legal and technological infrastructure for the delivery of music lyrics around the globe.
This provides two key benefits: First, fans gain access to music lyrics easily through Google's leading search platform and in the firm's digital downloads and streaming features.
Thanks to the partnership, Google instantly becomes the world's top lyrics generator for fans. In a simple Google search, all one needs to do is type in the name of the song and then type “lyrics. “The search engine also provides a list of other songs by the same name or similar name should its first estimate be incorrect.
Second, it generates cash royalties for songwriters and the intellectual property holders. The company tracks, reports, and pays royalties to music publishers on a song-by-song and territory-by-territory basis when lyrics are accessed.
So, how much money can musicians anticipate?
“I can’t get into the rates, but we expect it to be millions of dollars generated for publishers and songwriters as a result of this,” Ballantyne told Billboard earlier this week. “It’s all based on usage. Royalties are paid based on the number of times a lyric is viewed.”
Another Step in the Right Direction
The decision will likely hurt a number of websites that have indexed music lyrics over the years. Some of these sites pay royalties, while a large number of them do not.
LyricFind and Google's decision puts money directly into the pocket of musicians and songwriters, and provides a leading platform to do so almost overnight.
This is just another positive for the industry that has been dogged by piracy and unlawful use of intellectual property over the last two decades.
Recently, the Open Music Initiative launched in Boston and signed up more than 50 partners across the industry — from producers to academics, from advocacy groups to touring acts — to establish an infrastructure and set of standards to help artists receive compensation for their artwork.
Meanwhile, musicians and advocates are looking to put pressure on Congress to update the nation's outdated copyright laws. In addition, they are working on news ways to improve royalty revenues by pushing consumers toward paid-streaming models.
These trends are part of the reason why the music industry is in a turnaround as more and more advocates understand that music and its underlying intellectual property should not be free to the public, an unreasonable expectation set by ad-based services and online video channels over the last two decades.
Moving forward, companies like LyricFind will help produce needed transparency, accountability, and deserved compensation to the industry.
