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I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project

indiehackers.com

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Re: I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project

#51

Post by yvoschaap2 »

gotrecruit wrote: post #49

how much has rapgenius taken away from you? i know i used to land up in one of many crappy lyrics sites, such as yours, because those seem to be the only places to find them but these days i mostly stick to rapgenius for its clean interface. i imagine rapgenius's rise must have done some damage with their clearly superior technology?

Genius is killing it. They bring more then just lyrics, and build a community. Something I failed in both.

But its always fun to remind them that Justin Bieber & Ed Sheeran are their top traffic sources.

Re: I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project

#52

Post by tedeh »

empath75 wrote: post #4

I feel like starting a business with a massive theft of other people's intellectual property isn't a great model to follow.

I guess a lot could be said these days about the profitability and future prospects of Spotify, but their music catalogue in the early days beta was at least partially sourced from Piratebay and other torrent sites. [1]

Considering the deals they later made with the record companies, it does indeed seem like asking for forgiveness rather than permission could be the best strategy, as was noted by some of the comments in this thread.

[1]: https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files...

Re: I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project

#53

Post by paulcole »

xiaoma wrote: post #47
paulcole wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using/taking what isn't yours isn't right. Period. Do it if you want but don't ignore that pretty simple fact.

So it goes without saying that you're not one of those people who has committed the monstrous act of singing Happy Birthday without paying to license the performance rights? Or have you perhaps also lead a less than pure life (as viewed by the RIAA)?

Yes, I have sung Happy Birthday but I don't remember starting a business making money off of it and then bragging.

Yes, I have downloaded music in the past but I knew it was wrong and never used mental gymnastics to justify it. I simply did it because I didn't want to pay. Haven't done it in about a decade though.

Re: I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project

#54

Post by sputknick »

paulcole wrote: post #31
sputknick wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Serious question: is this theft of IP? I know if a songwriter writes a song, you need to license it in order to perform it for profit, but are the actual lyrics intellectual property?

I'm not sure how it wouldn't be. How would this differ from publishing an author's novel on your website? Or more closely related, a poet's work?

That makes sense, I didn't think of it like that. I was thinking that since the value is in the performance, that that's where the protection would be.

Re: I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project

#55

Post by giarc »

yvoschaap2 wrote: post #44
reallynice wrote: post #18

That's a lot of content to get licensed. You have to individually negotiate with every band and artist to get the license for their lyrics?

There are two companies available who are intermediaries between me (site) and the lyrics publisher (writer) and handle all licensing: - Gracenote (they sold their lyrics licensing to lyricfind) - Lyricfind E.g. Google and Bing also license their lyrics offering through Lyricfind. I only deal with them.

Out of curiosity, is getting the rights to a lyric catalogue a 4 figure, 5 figure, 6 figure deal?

Re: I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project

#56

Post by dragonwriter »

xiaoma wrote: post #47
paulcole wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Using/taking what isn't yours isn't right. Period. Do it if you want but don't ignore that pretty simple fact.

So it goes without saying that you're not one of those people who has committed the monstrous act of singing Happy Birthday without paying to license the performance rights? Or have you perhaps also lead a less than pure life (as viewed by the RIAA)?

> So it goes without saying that you're not one of those people who has committed the monstrous act of singing Happy Birthday without paying to license the performance rights?

But, none of the copyright claims on that were valid so, how is that a monstrous act, even in an absolutist view of adherence to legal copyrights?

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-happy-birthday-s...

Re: I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project

#57

Post by wumbolad »

6stringmerc wrote: post #46
zanny wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey look, its the physical-goods-are-the-same-as-digital-information strawman. Haven't seen ya in a while.

A more apt comparison is downloading an image that is still under Copyright (Mona Lisa is public domain, though photos of it may not be), getting a high quality print made at a local print shop, hanging it in your living room, and charging people $5 to come look at it. In this example, there is a tangible personal gain from violating the intellectual property rights of somebody else. It ain't theft, true, but it ain'…

Except he wasn't charging them to see it. He had a huge neon sign in the background that he was being paid to have in his house, and they got to see the mona lisa for free. If they happened to see the neon beer sign as well, then awesome.

Re: I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project

#58

Post by CM30 »

yvoschaap2 wrote: post #21
bballer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where did the initial seeding of all the lyrics & bands come from? Also, are most of the new lyrics contributed by users and if so how do you handle authenticating that the lyrics provided are accurate?

My license provider has a database of over 1.2M lyrics. But matter of fact is that Directlyrics hosts only around 10k. A decision made early on to focus on less pages compared to competitors that needed to rank 1M+ paghes.

So where did the lyrics come from when you started the site? Did you type them out yourself, take from some other site in the same niche, etc?

Re: I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project

#59

Post by wumbolad »

yvoschaap2 wrote: post #45
ScottBurson wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's blatant, intentional trademark infringement for direct commercial gain. IANAL, but I would think this might result in something quite a bit more expensive than a C&D -- like a lawsuit with punitive damages. ETA: and now the site owner is on record here on HN stating that the intent was to steal search traffic. I'm sure this is a cutthroat business ... but this is an open invitation for one's own throat to be cut…

So many lawyers here on HN, I forgot...

Yeah man these people are crazy

Re: I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project

#60

Post by jethro_tell »

ChristianBundy wrote: post #36
bshimmin wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, so you're using one of your competitors' names quite prominently on your own site? And, er, you think that's ok?

Yeah, that's incredibly shady.

The whole thing is pretty parasitic.

'How I let other people create so I don't have to work'

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