The music industry has found a new front in their ongoing campaign to upset consumers. As if invasive digital rights management and lawsuits against individual downloaders weren't enough, The Music Publishers' Association (MPA), which represents US sheet music companies is going to start going after websites that offer song lyrics in 2006.
MPA president Lauren Keiser told the BBC that he wanted "site owners to be jailed". He does not just want to shut websites and impose fines, but rather if authorities can "throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective".
Consumers may understand why full copies of sheet music shouldn't be made available free on the net, just as they've always understood why selling bootleg CD's at flea markets isn't acceptable. But how will they react when they try to find a song they heard on the radio by searching for key lyrics only to find that the information is locked behind closed doors or with an admission price attached? And how many CD or download sales will then be lost because this point of discovery is now blurred?
Of course sheet music publishers don't care. They don't profit from CD or download sales. But the songwriters who they represent should.
For an interesting and opinionated overview of "fair rights" issue, read Michael Hiltzik's Golden State column in today's LA Times here.
