Last.fm's policy on lyrics

[Angus Maiden]

I am incredibly pissed off at the moment. I spent ages posting lyrics for my new album in the wiki pages for each track, and they have been deleted. Clearly last.fm has been taken over by some bigwig dickheads who are anti-artistic/creative freedom. Here's a copy of my communication with them so far:

"Re: Wiki Rules: Lyrics

On 6 Aug 2008, 00:53 bmxgamer wrote:
Many of your wiki edits did not adhere to the style rules and thus were deleted or edited to be within these set rules.

Lyrics should never be posted in track wikis due to copyright.

Please read the wiki FAQ before making any more edits. Failure to adhere to the style rules and guidelines found in the FAQ may result in action taken against you.

Thank you,

~ bmxgamer
last.fm moderator.

W. T. F?

They are MY lyrics. I wrote them, and I can post them if I want. All my work is free, including the lyrics. I demand you put them back This is locking down creative freedom. W. T. F.???"

Do you guys agree? They're my fucking lyrics and I want people to be able to access them. You will not believe how pissed I am right now, last.fm has been my home for many years now and it just looks like things are going sour. FuCK!!!

sorry for venting, but..

FUUUUUUUUUCK

[Angus Maiden]

further developments:

"Re(3): Wiki Rules: Lyrics

On 6 Aug 2008, 22:09 bmxgamer wrote:
Hello,

I should have mentioned that lyrics shouldn't be posted because it's impossible for mods to tell who does own the copyright and that the wiki system is open for all. You may own the copyright, however, if another user edits your track wikis and doesn't own the copyright it's going to get messy and confusing.

It should also be noted that the purpose of the wiki is for a track description, solely posting lyrics is not a track description. The rules are hopefully going to be updated soon to make sure it's clear that lyrics are not allowed.

ok that's fair enough i guess. very very sad though. once again sorry for getting so heated, it was just a bit of a shock, and i spent a lot of time posting them up. hope you have a nice day."

heh i'm so bi-polar sometimes. calmed down now, but still... soooooooo sad. i want people to see my lyrics.

[Pixieguts]

yep, i've actually had some difficulties in the past with that particular last.fm mod myself. he has deleted artist images i uploaded to my artist page because they looked like album covers to him instead of 'real' pics. i think he's a bit overzealous and not really very people friendly in his approach. he's also deleted links to album art etc because it doesn't fit the bill of 'accepted' content and removed links to the pixies palace group at last.fm from my artist and label pages.

can you upload the lyrics to one of your other sites? i think it can be done at reverbnation and probably others too, annoying to have to redo it all but at least it's another option...

when i complained about the above mentioned mod action in one of the last.fm support forums, a bunch of the mods came in saying that, unlike at other sites, last.fm artists pages do not as much 'belong' to the artists - they claim they are more 'wiki' style things, dunno, the argument seems a bit weak to me. last.fm is less friendly to independent artists than it used to be it seems. i think the cbs takeover last year is really starting to show at this point unfortunately.

there still seems a lot of room to have 'guerilla' space there though and this seems worthwhile as there are a lot of features and ways of spreading music at that site that simply don't exist elsewhere, not to mention a massive number of other artists and listeners who are into independent stuff regardless of what the management are up to. we may just have to dodge a few slings and arrows from above every now and then ;D

[Angus Maiden]

yea the takeover is definitely rearing it's ugly head, i hope the site doesn't go down the toilet, i have put soooooooooo much effort into lastfm. we're troopers though, we can snipe from the shadows and remain underground. yea all of my lyrics are on reverbnation if anyone is ever interested in reading them. also i have "The Ghost Of Muses Past" at archive.org complete with a lyrics .txt file, 'tis rather an awesome site for artists who make their music free, haven't got around to it but i'm gonna put all of my albums up there. I feel really dissapointed because lastfm was always my "hub" and it looks like i may have to change that now. still, i have to admit it may be because of their "it's not your own personal site" approach that we can do some of the awesome things that we can do there like recos and stuff.

[Voide]

Last.fm is now owned by a company in the promised land of lawsuits, they are clearly trying to cover their asses.
I share your pain Angus, I would be VERY pissed off if I was you! - not that I think it would help but never the less.
I think this is just the beginning unfortunately...

[..LeRenard!]

what the fuck is that?
damn.. it's true that it is fucked up,
on the other thand, last.fm has the final rights to the content on their servers..

but still, this isn't how last.fm should evolve into..
sad news :s :(

[Angus Maiden]

they certainly do not have the final rights to any content. in regards to tunes, the artist always maintains ownership of them, in regards to wiki's, they are considered "open" and therefore not owned by anyone. would be reeeaaaally screwed if last.fm actually owned any of our content. i'm still remaining positive. it's still a great place. as long as the users keep on keepin' on, that's what it's all about.

[..LeRenard!]

I don't mean they own it
I mean they can choose which things (aka content) land on their servers and which not.

[Angus Maiden]

i don't see what you mean.

[..LeRenard!]

hmm, how can I explain this in a better way..

Ok, let me try..
If you upload content or write text and submit it to the Last.FM servers it is still your creation & content,
but Last.FM may decide to delete that, because they have the final word about what is stored on their servers.. Why? Because it are their servers. Doesn't mean that they own what you have uploaded!
But they do own their own computers & servers and they own the rights to delete material that is uploaded on there.

I am not saying that this is a good or a bad thing, it's just a fact that they have the final decision to what is stored on their own computers/servers.
I'm also not saying that lyrics should be deleted, I'm all for it that they could appear there, so, yes it sucks that they have been deleted, but as I said before.. They have the final call whether to keep it on the site or not..

[Angus Maiden]

i see what you're saying now. doesn't really matter though, last.fm will never take down any of your songs for an arbitrary reason, it would have to be because of a serious breach of copyright or something.

[Angus Maiden]

and as for lyrics, well it is true that wiki systems are open and free for anyone to change, and it is also true that that information resides on the servers and thus they have control over it. but they're really not a tyrant company in the slightest and wouldn't just delete any wiki for the hell of it. there has to be a reason and in my case, there was a reason my lyrics were taken down, and I understand it now. but having power means having responsibility and i think the last.fm crew are very very responsible with the content that sits on their servers.

[Pixieguts]

The Last.fm staffers are really good and the mods have been fine in my experience on the whole too (aside from overzealousness mentioned above). Not so sure about the 'responsibility' of CBS though ;D

The rollout of new Last.fm is a bit of a debacle, the site is inferior to the way it used to be in my view and I see this as largely because of corporate pressures from CBS. It's a pity the Last.fm staffers are the ones who have had to receive the massive wave of backlash from users...