Yahoo Inc. and digital media company Gracenote launched an online lyrics service yesterday, the first industry-backed effort in a market dominated by unauthorised, rogue websites.

Song lyrics are among the top searches performed on the web, but consumers have largely relied on unlicensed sources that often provide inaccurate and incomplete lyrics and do not compensate composers for their work.

The Yahoo deal comes after an agreement between music publishers and Gracenote, giving Gracenote the rights to lyrics from the North American catalogues of Bertelsmann AG’s BMG Music Publishing, Vivendi’s Universal Music Publishing Group, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, jointly owned by Sony Corp. and Michael Jackson and other publishers.

Terms of the Yahoo deal were not disclosed, but officials said it was a variable revenue-sharing agreement based on advertising.

Gracenote Chief Executive Craig Palmer said licensing lyrics should boost worldwide music publishing revenues, estimated at about $4 billion (R28.4 billion) annually, with the words to songs ultimately providing as much as $100 million (R710 million) in annual revenues in about 10 years as the market expands with new opportunities like online subscriptions and downloads.

Source: Reuters