Gracenote and Yahoo launch online lyrics service

Internet giants Yahoo aims to cater to those web users who are always hunting for lyrics of their favorite songs. Till now, most of these users had to rely upon unlicensed sources which usually provided incomplete or inaccurate lyrics.

Yahoo has now teamed up with digital media company Gracenote to launch their online lyrics service. Ian Rogers, general manager of Yahoo Music spoke on this new service launch: “Finally, a free, legal and definitive way to settle a bet with the guy sitting next to you at the bar who is certain the Ramones’ most famous anthem declares, ‘I wanna piece of bacon.’”

Gracenote has already collaborated with music publishers including BMG Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing and several others to get legal rights to the lyrics of the songs owned by them.

Gracenote Chief Executive Craig Palmer added in a statement that availability of these lyrics legally on the web would boost worldwide music publishing revenues. Gracenote is also said to be discussing a similar deal with Apple to provide lyrics on Apple iTunes service.

Ralph Peer, chief executive officer of music publishing firm, peermusic added his views on these latest developments: “We think we can build a really healthy business for lyrics and I think publishers stand to gain quite significantly from this new revenue stream. With the popularity of lyrics on the Internet, advertisers want to be there. This is definitely a selling point.”