Gracenote(R), a global leader in technology and services that are
an integral part of the digital media economy, today announced it has
expanded its Lyrics program to the European market by initiating
licensing discussions with European music publishers and artists. More
than 80 publishers have joined the Gracenote Lyrics program since its
launch in July 2006, including all five major music publishers in the
U.S., resulting in the world's broadest catalog of licensed song
lyrics. With its pervasiveness in Europe and its understanding of the
European market, Gracenote is uniquely positioned to be the first to
bring the most extensive set of legal, accurate song lyrics to the
region.
Gracenote holds the rights to all available lyrics from the North
American music catalogues of the five major music publishers: BMG
Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing,
Universal Music Publishing Group and Warner/Chappell Music.
Independent publishers in the program include Peermusic, Famous Music,
ABKCO Music, Inc., The Bob Dylan Music Company, Disney Music
Publishing, Ice Nine Publishing, and Windswept Holdings. These
licenses pave the way for the first legal mass commercial use of
lyrics, which is an important step in enhancing the consumer digital
music experience while protecting the rights of songwriters and music
publishers around the globe.
Gracenote will launch a lyrics service next month in North
America, enabling digital music retailers, mobile providers, search
engines, music portals, and consumer electronics manufacturers to
offer legal access to an accurate and comprehensive lyrics catalog.
With this announcement Gracenote is beginning its licensing of
European lyric rights and plans to launch a service in Europe in 2008.
European Localization in Gracenote's Global Media Database
Gracenote's Global Media Database is the world's largest database
of music information, accessed by more than 200 million people
annually and actively used within every European country. The reason
for Gracenote's popularity in Europe stems in part from its focus on
localizing the content for individual European countries, including
music styles, genres, and support for local languages. More than
600,000 uniquely European albums exist in the Gracenote database,
which has been searched more than 100 million times by European
consumers.
An element of the Global Media Database, Gracenote's proprietary
Global Genre System offers 1600 micro-genres mapped to culturally
relevant genres, and contains more than 200 classifications unique to
Europe, including local music styles such as Hamppa (Finland),
Volkstumliche Musik (Germany), Levenslied (Dutch), Cantautori (Italy),
Musica Popular Ligera (Portugal), Dhimotika (Greek), Chalga (Bulgaria)
and Grime (U.K.). The combination of localized content and song lyrics
will further enhance Gracenote's products and services for European
consumers.
"Gracenote has a deep understanding of the European market and is
pervasive throughout the continent. For this reason we're uniquely
positioned to be the first to bring a lyrics licensing program to the
region," said Craig Palmer, CEO of Gracenote. "We look forward to
forging relationships in the European market as we build compelling
new products and services that will deliver lyrics to millions of
consumers worldwide."
"Licensing our catalog of lyrics through Gracenote gives consumers
new access to accurate, legal and original content," said Nicholas
Firth, chairman and CEO of BMG Music Publishing. "Our agreement with
Gracenote ensures that music lovers will have the most compelling and
complete music experience. This license creates a new revenue stream
which will guarantee songwriters are paid for their work."
As part of the lyrics licensing program, independent publishers
and songwriters in Europe are able to "opt in" via a website and have
their Lyrics made available through Gracenote's service. This is a
breakthrough in enabling smaller organizations or even individual
artists to have their important content made available to millions of
fans and to be properly compensated for its use. Music Publishers can
go to www.gracenote.com/lyrics for more information and enroll in the
program.
About Gracenote
Gracenote is a global leader in embedded technology, enriched
content, and data services for digital entertainment solutions within
the Internet, consumer electronics, mobile, and automotive markets.
Formerly known as CDDB(R)(TM), Gracenote delivers a substantially
improved consumer experience in digital media devices and
applications, plus media monitoring and other data services, making it
an integral part of the digital media economy. Gracenote powers
leading services including Apple iTunes, Yahoo! Music Jukebox, AOL
Winamp; home and automotive products from Alpine, Panasonic, Philips
and Sony; and mobile music applications from Samsung, Sony Ericsson,
KDDI (Japan), KTF (Korea), Musiwave (Europe), and others.
Headquartered in Emeryville, California, Gracenote has offices in New
York, Tokyo, Berlin and Seoul. For more information about Gracenote,
please refer to www.gracenote.com/corporate/.
Gracenote and CDDB and their logos are registered trademarks of
Gracenote, Inc.
