Matthew sez, "According to this BBC News story, Warner Chappell's legal threats against the creator of PearLyrics are just a preview of a campaign to be launched in 2006 by the Music Publishers Association. The MPA is seeking to take lyrics and tabs sites offline and-- get this-- 'Mr Keiser said he did not just want to shut websites and impose fines, saying if authorities can 'throw in some jail time I think we'll be a little more effective'.'"

This is ridiculous. I don't accept the argument about this cutting into the sales of sheet music. Not only is sheet music for most popular music not available, but when it is, it's way overpriced. You also can't buy by the song. If you want to learn one or two songs off an album, which is almost always the case, you have to pay for an entire collection.

I think the attitude taken by artists like Frank Black is the right way to approach it. He puts tablature of all his solo work and The Pixies on his website.

Don't artists want fans to play their songs? I certainly would...

And jail terms for lyric sites? That's just completely unreasonable. This will backfire.

Boing Boing: Music publishers: Jail for lyric-sites