Ole Begemann: iOS Development

iOS SDK, Cocoa and Objective-C

Songtext stopped working

with 6 comments

Songtext displaying error message

Songtext displaying error message

As of this morning, Songtext is no longer working. LyricWiki, the site Songtext obtained its lyrics from, was required by music publishers to cripple their API in such a way that apps like Songtext no longer have direct access to the lyrics. This effecticely breaks Songtext and many other iPhone lyrics apps that also used LyricWiki as their source.

I am very sorry to all users but at the moment there is nothing I (or LyricWiki) can do about this.

I would like to thank the guys at LyricWiki for their efforts in providing an API in the first place. And special thanks for providing users of Songtext and other apps with a clear error message that should minimize support requests for app developers:

Unfortunately, due to licensing restrictions from some of the major music publishers we can no longer return lyrics through the LyricWiki API (where this application gets some or all of its lyrics).

The lyrics for this song can be found at the following URL: …

(Please note: this is not the fault of the developer who created this application, but is a restriction imposed by music publishers themselves.)

I sincerely hope that the music publishers are working on a solution that would allow for the existence of lyrics apps in the future. The popularity of some of these apps clearly shows that there is a demand. Instead of only crippling third-party solutions, they should provide their own APIs (with their own licensing model if they feel they need to be compensated).

Written by Ole Begemann

August 3rd, 2009 at 11:17 am

Posted in Uncategorized

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6 Responses to 'Songtext stopped working'

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  1. Thanks for posting the update about LyricWiki.org’s API. I was going to post a note here but no need. It’s really a shame.

    I also wish Songtext had a “keep permanently” option for the song cache. :( I guess in a month I won’t have any need for Songtext… :(

    Cris

    3 Aug 09 at 11:04 pm

  2. Klasse, es waren zwar nur 79 cent, aber Kleinvieh macht auch Mist. Ein App zu verkaufen das dann eingestellt werden muss ist sicher ein guter Gewinn. Ich hoffe der Programmierer stellt das verdiente Geld einem Wohltätigen Zweck zur Verfügung.

    Walter

    11 Aug 09 at 8:03 pm

  3. Walter: ich kann dir den Betrag leider nicht persönlich erstatten, da ich keinen Zugriff auf die Kundendaten im App Store habe. Du kannst dich jedoch an Apple wenden und denen die Situation schildern, verbunden mit der Bitte um Rückerstattung des Kaufpreises. Apple entscheidet dann ohne Rücksprache mit mir. Siehe auch So melden Sie ein Problem mit Einkäufen in Ihrem iTunes Store.

    Ole Begemann

    12 Aug 09 at 11:33 am

  4. Hallo Ole,

    schade, dass songtext nicht mehr funktioniert. Ich weiss nun nicht, wie lyricswiki funktioniert hat. Aber grundsätzlich kann es ja nicht verboten sein, wenn ein Nutzer lyrics mit (potentiellen Fehlern) zu einem song postet, oder? Wenn man nun diesen Ansatz verfolgt, könnte man doch eine eigene “community-driven”-songtext sammlung aufbauen … genügend User des Apps gäbe es ja sicher und wenn man Dein App um eine Input-Maske erweitert, könnte das sicherlich gut funktionieren.

    Gruß
    Sven

    Wasmer

    17 Aug 09 at 2:53 pm

  5. Have you looked into Lyricsfly? I haven’t worked with it personally but it looks interesting:

    http://lyricsfly.com/api/

    Barry

    17 Aug 09 at 6:17 pm

  6. Barry: Thanks for the suggestion. I had noticed Lyricsfly before but at the moment I do not see myself switching over to them or another service anytime soon. With their move against LyricWiki, the music industry has made it clear that they do not like apps like Songtext. The likelihood that what happened to LyricWiki can also happen to Lyricsfly any day is quite high IMO.

    Ole Begemann

    17 Aug 09 at 10:25 pm

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