Warner Music attacks specialized web-browser

Jamie Zawinski sez,
PearLyrics is a program that displays the lyrics of the currently-playing track in iTunes: it gets the lyrics from the ID3 tag in the MP3 file, or if they aren't in there, it searches for them on a few different web sites, and then saves them into the MP3s.

It's very handy: I managed to use it to download the lyrics for almost half of my music collection in one fell swoop.

Except that the author got a "Cease and Desist" letter from Warner/Chappel Music, who seem to think that his program -- which is, basically, nothing more than a specialized web browser -- is somehow in violation of their copyrights.

But, the author doesn't have the time or money to risk a lawsuit, so he panicked and pulled it.

Link (Thanks, JWZ!)

Cory Doctorow

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