Today’s edition of the NPR News program “Day to Day” includes a report I filed on the music industry’s war against an iTunes helper app that searches the ‘net for lyrics to songs while you play them.
Earlier this month, Warner/Chappell sent a harshly-worded lawyergram to the Austrian developer who wrote PearLyrics, threatening legal action if he didn’t remove the software from distribution. Apple was cc’d, too, and they promptly yanked links to the app from apple.com. After the EFF’s Fred Von Lohmann distributed an open letter taking Warner/Chappell to task, the music publisher issued an apology of sorts — but PearLyrics remains offline, the chilling effect is still real, and music publishers are preparing a new legal assault on lyrics websites in January.
Link to segment, Link to Day to Day website, archived audio online after 12PM PT/3PM ET. Previous “Xeni Tech” segments on NPR here.
See also this related report filed for Wired News. Previous posts on Boing Boing about the PearLyrics debacle: Link.