Apple to Add Song Lyrics to iTunes Store

Last summer, Gracenote secured the rights to distribute lyrics from nearly 100 music publishers, including BMG Music Publishing, EMI Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner/Chappell Music, and dozens of prominent independent publishers. Earlier this week, Yahoo! announced its licensing deal with Gracenote, and started to offer legal, licensed song lyrics from hundreds of thousands of songs to its customers.

When talking to Reuters, Palmer mentioned that his firm was already in discussions with various other music partners, such as Apple's iTunes. "We wouldn't be in the business to launch just one service, so stay tuned," he said.

Apple already offers high-quality album artwork downloads to its customers, and lets users keep their libraries up to par even when it comes to songs not purchased form the iTunes Store. A deal with Gracenote would be a natural next step, and would pave the way for lyric downloads to digital music players, and even their own TVs using Apple’s other products. Unlike other companies, Apple certainly has the ecosystem to take full advantage of this, both in terms of hardware and software. Also, it has a great track record of making this that work perfectly, and lyrics integration would be one of those things that need to be done just right.

Even if Apple had no such plans before, if others like Yahoo! go down this route, and become popular, Apple will have no choice but to get on board, so they might as well jump in early.

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