
I’ve supported myself for the past decade with my side project - yvoschaap2
https://www.indiehackers.com/@yvo/how-ive-lived-the-4-hour-work-week-for-a-decade
======
ronilan
Great story from a great era.

And as I was reading this I was humming Springsteen to myself

 _" Glory days, well, they'll pass you by

Glory days, in the wink of a young girl's eye

Glory days, glory days"_

Turns out directlyrics doesn't have those lyrics. Google however returned them
at top of the search homepage.

And... wow!

TIL there is a version of this great song with a verse that was not included
in the original 80s version.

 _" My old man worked twenty years on the line

And they let him go

Now everywhere he goes out looking for work

They just tell him that he's too old"_

Here's the video: [https://youtu.be/P5-IoEcolp8](https://youtu.be/P5-IoEcolp8)

 _Glory days!_

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Subetai
Great story. I worked as your competitor with metrolyrics about 5 years ago.
It was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. I think you put the
correct amount of effort in, added some value and moved on nicely. Much kudos

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empath75
I feel like starting a business with a massive theft of other people's
intellectual property isn't a great model to follow.

~~~
sputknick
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?

~~~
logfromblammo
Lyrics are copyrighted. Musical scores may be separately copyrighted.
Individual performances or recordings of music and lyrics together may also be
separately copyrighted.

Typically, the latter is pursued by recording companies, because that is the
IP they own or exclusively license. The rest is rarely handled by the
individual rights-holders, as they usually just let ASCAP or a similar
organization handle the business and litigation end, and just cash the royalty
checks.

Licensing the lyrics should be a whole lot cheaper than the music or a
specific recording. So it would not cost a lyrics site as much to be fully
legit as it would for a music streaming site. Likewise, it may cost less to
license a cover band to perform something than to license the recording made
of it by a famous group, if the song was not actually written by them. This is
why ABC's Dancing With the Stars uses so many covers, but obviously still uses
recognizable recordings where Disney already has or can cheaply obtain a
performance license.

~~~
bdcravens
> Likewise, it may cost less to license a cover band to perform something than
> to license the recording made of it by a famous group, if the song was not
> actually written by them.

You could even pay the original artist to perform it. The recording is what's
licensed, not all performances by that artist. On Spotify I've seen quite a
few older artists re-recording their old hits, presumably because they get
more money if they themselves own the license to their own cover.

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yvoschaap2
Hi, OP here. Happy to answer any specific question...

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bshimmin
Why does [https://www.directlyrics.com](https://www.directlyrics.com) have a
TITLE of "Azlyrics" and an H1 of "Azlyrics" but
[http://www.azlyrics.com](http://www.azlyrics.com) seems to be an entirely
unrelated web site? The latter is typically what I end up at when I search for
song lyrics if I click one of the first few links (though if I want to read
some amusing analysis, usually there is a Genius.com link a few below).

~~~
yvoschaap2
Yes, good eye. A great example of continuious testing SEO opportunities.

What if Google would start ranking directlyrics on specific 'azlyrics'
queries? I haven't seen it happen yet, but if it worked... expect it to be
reverted next week.

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

~~~
logfromblammo
It's AZLyrics's responsibility to police their own trademarks, so it's okay,
unless they say it is not in a C&D letter.

So it's _legally_ okay, as far as we know.

Still a dick move, though. It's not okay in _my opinion_. But I'm not the one
who may gain or lose thousands of dollars by deciding whether or not to do it,
either. I can't say for certain whether it would be okay or not from outside
my comfy judgment armchair.

~~~
ScottBurson
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.

~~~
yvoschaap2
So many lawyers here on HN, I forgot...

~~~
ScottBurson
It's not us you need to worry about. Good luck!

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gotrecruit
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?

~~~
ghjnut
It's also cool that artists will jump on to elaborate on their own lyrics.
Here's Eminem talking about his hook in 'Rap God'
[https://genius.com/2566991](https://genius.com/2566991)

~~~
gaadd33
Do they jump on because of the community, as part of a PR plan, or does Genius
pay them?

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trevyn
The transition from unlicensed to licensed seems like a big step. Did the
publishers just reach out and ask you to pay a fee?

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yvoschaap2
So back in 2010 the first law suit started against lyrics sites: >
[http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-
courts/californ...](http://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-
courts/california/cacdce/2:2009cv06160/452250/219/)

It was pretty clear that others would be next. Hence unlicensed wouldn't be
maintainable.

Next to that, I wanted to sell advertising to big brands. My advertising
partner insisted we needed to be licensed for the Coca Cola's of this world to
spend money on my traffic.

So for me it was an opportunity to increase revenue, at the costs of lower
profit margin.

~~~
godot
I think the commenter's question was more about _how_ you did it :) (Thanks
for answering questions here btw)

Did publishers just reach out to say "hey, pay this fee"? Or did they straight
up start with lawsuits/C&D? Or did you reach out to them and say "hey I got
this site, how much do I pay you to become licensed?"

~~~
yvoschaap2
So I went out and found licensing pro-actively. I wasn't contacted before in a
formal way. But I know they (NMPA) did sent C&D letters to over 40 domains
eventually.

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Steeeve
I found one line from that article really funny:

> an LA-based company that was run by a self-proclaimed co-founder of MySpace

I've met several people in southern california that say they are myspace co-
founders. Why on earth is myspace the go-to mark for them?

~~~
inimino
Big enough for name recognition, but obscure enough that most people don't
know offhand who founded it?

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joshuaheard
Read the whole article waiting to find out how he got the lyrics and was
disappointed. An article on a website selling content should at least include
the source of the content.

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WalterBright
I've contracted malware twice from merely clicking on Google search results
for lyrics. I never visit lyrics sites anymore.

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marsrover
I'd be curious to see some month to month (or year to year) financial charts.

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yvoschaap2
It's actually pretty aligned with the traffic graph shown.

Exceptions are months (e.g. around Christmas) where my advertising partner
would be able to attract up to 3x revenue from the same amount of traffic as
the month before.

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sigi45
"And that’s all there is to it." srsly?

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reallynice
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?

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yvoschaap2
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.

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

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yvoschaap2
Back then there was a minimum commitment in the 6 figures.

