In the March 6 edition of the Music X blog, they included the news from LyricFind and their CEO Darryl Ballantyne on why they’ve sued Musicxmatch and their private equity owner, TPG.
As consumers we’ve gotten very used to the availability of lyrics. We search for them, we see them on videos, and they’re available on DSPs. It’s long been an area of contestation among a competitive field of companies offering licensed lyrics. LyricFind itself got sued a few years ago by competitor Genius for allegedly sourcing their lyrics to publish in Google search results. This new suit is a little different in that it has a stronger competition element – potentially heading to different kinds of law and legislation. In a competitive market, private equity is known to force exclusive deals – let’s see how this shakes out in the lyric industry.
– Maarten Walraven, Music X