Web Site Distribution
Of Lyrics Is Illegal

Wall Street Journal
Monday, September 28, 1998

Our Attention was drawn to your Sept. 17 Web Watch article and the comments concerning the International Lyrics Server Web site. Most of the lyrics on this site are posted without the authorization or consent of the owners or administrators of the musical works. Such activity violates the U.S. Copyright Act and other international property rights conventions.

Despite the best efforts of several music publishers and the National Music Publishers Association, the site continues to illegally distribute copyrighted song lyrics. In fact, the owners of the composition "Louie Louie" wrote a letter to the ILS asking that the song be removed from the server, a request ILS continues to ignore.

Our company is engaged in the publication and distribution of sheet music and other printed music products. Buyers of printed sheet music often make such purchases simply to acquire the song lyrics. This is expecially true when a recording artist makes the creative decision not to include song lyrics in his or her CD liner notes.

David C. Olsen
Director/Business Affairs
Warner Brothers Publication

Folks, it is NOT a folk friendly world out there

I encourage you to spend 10 minutes on the Stanford site to see the "power" that was available three years ago. Its potential should have advanced "four-fold" by this time.