I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. Looks like the RIAA has decided to crack down on sites that supply lyrics to songs. Not necessarily themselves, but if they supply an API (Application Programming Interface), then that site will have to kill any ability to pull lyrics from the site.
LyricWiki is one of the sites that is having to drop any API method that gets lyrics from it’s database and sends it out to the caller of the API method. “Get Lyrical” is an application that takes advantage of LyricWiki’s API methods.
LyricWiki posted info on this change (see Editor’s Corner section of their main page) on their website recently and posted a link to a letter that was sent out on August 2nd to all LyricWiki’s API developers:
Dear LyricWiki API Developers,
It has been a great run, and I have seen some fantastic and
interesting applications come from all of your skills and hard work.Unfortunately, licensing agreements with the biggest publishers in the
music industry require us to no longer offer the ability for
programmatic access to LyricWiki’s collection of lyrics.We tried to arrange some way to let API Developers license through us,
but this was not possible.While this is not something we are happy about, it is a necessity in
order to finally secure licensing for LyricWiki from the major
publishers which will allow the project to survive indefinitely.
As of this writing, the API methods are still working. How long they will remain working is not known. I would suspect that the developer of Get Lyrical and other developers will search for other means of getting lyrics after this change takes place. I suspect the results will not be as good as they have been.
My guess is that this has something to do with changes being rumored by Apple’s iTunes Store called Cocktail. The idea is to add liner notes and other features to help sell full albums instead of selling individual tracks. I’m not saying Apple has anything to do with this, just that the RIAA and record labels are pushing electronic stores to encourage sales of albums versus single tracks.
Dave M.
August 8th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
[...] Get Lyrical And Other Tools Will Soon Be Seriously Crippled [...]
[WORDPRESS HASHCASH] The comment’s server IP (208.97.141.99) doesn’t match the comment’s URL host IP () and so is spam.
August 8th, 2009 at 5:51 pm
Quick clarification… the API is already in the disabled state which just returns the error message. If applications using the API are still working, then they must have found another way to access the data (whether from LyricWiki or not).
Example:
http://lyricwiki.org/api.php?artist=David_Gilmour&song=No_Way
August 8th, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Wanted lyrics today, found your blog, but I needed a solution. Got one
http://lyricsfetcher.sourceforge.net/html/index.html
It uses Lyricswiki also, but in addition, it uses another foreign site. Ran right through my library and picked up accurate lyrics. Quick as heck, to boot.
August 8th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Forgot to mention that it’s algorithm for song identification is also pretty accurate. Even added to my unusually named live versions of songs.
August 8th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
@Sean: I wonder what Get Lyrical is doing to get the lyrics then. I just checked it again and it’s pulling the lyrics just fine and uses LyricWiki since it puts this text at the end of the lyrics it stores:
[ Get Lyrical searches LyricWiki.org : http://lyricwiki.org/Chickenfoot:Soap_On_A_Rope ]
@Glemnar: Thanks for the tip about Lyrics Fetcher, I’ll check them out. … Well, just checked out the website. I see now why your comment was worded the way it was. I’m pretty much a Mac house here. All my music is on my Mac in iTunes. So, Lyrics Fetcher wouldn’t be of much use. Plus, they are going to have the same issues that Get Lyrics would. Since LyricWiki has modified the API so that it doesn’t return lyrics anymore.
I can’t explain why Get Lyrics works other than possibly since the API call returns a URL, maybe Get Lyrics sees that URL and sends an HTTP GET command on it to pull the webpage with the lyrics in it, then parses the page to pull the lyrics out. A lot of work, but doable.
August 14th, 2009 at 11:16 pm
The RIAA is a fascist organization.
August 14th, 2009 at 11:52 pm
He he, no arguments from me friend!
August 30th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
@Glemnar: You are the BEST!!!!! Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
June 27th, 2010 at 2:20 am
This cracks me up:” The RIAA is a fascist organization.” I knwo a couple of people that were involved and I thnk you are correct. They keep trying to protect something that is like plugging a broken dam.
January 2nd, 2011 at 5:28 pm
[...] Get Lyrical And Other Tools Will Soon Be Seriously Crippled August 20099 comments 4 [...]
June 16th, 2011 at 2:10 pm
[...] the RIAA is still against it, and they've actually shut down any relatively easy solutions for quickly bringing lyrics into iTunes. It's a real shame — especially for any music purchased [...]