You call the tune, Yahoo serves up the lyrics … for free

Last Updated: Tuesday, April 24, 2007 | 4:20 PM ET

CBC Arts

Yahoo plans to offer a free service providing lyrics to hundreds of thousands of popular songs, by artists ranging from the Beatles and Bob Dylan to the Arctic Monkeys.

The company, based in Sunnyvale, Calif., announced Tuesday that it hopes to attract new users through a service providing legal access to 400,000 song lyrics.

They will come from 9,000 different artists, Yahoo said.

Dozens of other websites offer song lyrics, but most are posting the words without the permission of copyright holders. Some are also inaccurate, as they rely on outside users to post new lyrics.

Yahoo's free lyrics "fills a huge, gaping hole out there," said Ian Rogers, the general manager of Yahoo music.

The lyrics will be available through Yahoo's online music section.

Yahoo said it has struck a licensing deal that will see it share revenue from ads on the site with the copyright holders.

The database and licensing deals were cobbled together over the past two years by Gracenote, a digital media management specialist based in Emeryville, Calif.

Recording studios such as BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner/Chappell Music have signed on.

Phil Leigh of Inside Digital said the service would create a new revenue stream for artists and song publishers.

It will also make it easier for people to identify a tune they might hear on the radio or on the web, he said.

"I also suspect this might cause the music industry to step up its efforts to take legal action against these unauthorized [lyric] sites with Yahoo cheering them on in the background," Leigh said.