My problem is the “RIAA” stealing that money for themselves. In fact, most artists that sign with a label, typically sign away the rights to their music for what the label has to offer. Radio air time, promotions, tours, etc… That’s all find and dandy, because (as you stated) most are not as mega a group as Metallica, so they wind up benefiting from the deal.

However, if they take off and start selling millions of copies of their first album. All of a sudden, the deal isn’t so good anymore.

Now, not being in the industry, I don’t know for sure what goes on when a deal is signed with a label, but from what I read, the RIAA gets way more money than any artist.

With the ability for artists to self-promote, at least on the web, the RIAA and record labels in general, may become a thing of the past. At least we can hope for the artists sake.

In 2011, a judge ruled in favor of singer Paul Collins, whose rock group The Beat lost substantial revenue from a series of unauthorized bootleg recordings released by an underground record label. The recordings were unknowingly engineered during The Beat’s tours with The Police, Eddie Money and The Cure. Although the label argued that the recordings were tracked and mixed by an independent investor during the 1970s and 1980s, Collins was unaware of these dealings and was awarded an unspecified amount of damages. Collins was granted permission to digitally re-master and officially release the live recordings. In response to backlash and negative publicity from fans accusing him of being greedy, Collins attempted to make a public statement about piracy. In 2012, Collins made the recordings available to everyone as free MP3 download tracks to fans worldwide.

Some fans might argue that Metallica was selfish to target Napster for illegally offering their music as MP3s. In all fairness, not everyone victimized by piracy are platinum-selling, wealthy artists in the caliber of Metallica. Paul Collins had just as much right to take legal action, but he turned the negative situation into a positive one by publicly releasing the pirated material as free downloads to his fans. Case in point, not all rock stars are selfish or “only in it for the money.” Musicians have a right to be paid for their intellectual property. People who support music piracy only think about themselves. If a musician isn’t being paid for their work, how are they supposed to continue recording, writing, performing and touring? Musicians aren’t slaves and if they aren’t making enough money to function, then they might choose a different career path that doesn’t involve making music.

I’m not a big fan of the Occupy Wall Street movement, but I do see their point. The 1% really is in control of this country, not the 99%.

There are other programs that find lyrics for songs and updates iTunes with what if finds for both platforms. I haven’t looked since MassiveLyrics works great for myself. I’m sure a search of Google would find a bunch of lyric programs to choose from.