LyricWiki

LyricWiki (also known as Lyrically or LyricWikia) was an online wiki-based lyrics database and encyclopedia.[2] In March 2013, it was the seventh largest MediaWiki installation[3] with over 2,000,000 pages including 1.5 million songs.[4] Prior to its shutdown, users on the site could view, edit, and discuss the lyrics of songs, which were also available for purchase from links on the site.[5] Users were told to be mindful of copyright while contributing,[6] and copyright violations were removed upon request.[7] All the lyrics on LyricWiki were licensed through LyricFind.[8]

LyricWiki
Screenshot of the main page
Type of site
Internet lyrics database
Available inMultilingual (13 active Main Page translations)
DissolvedSeptember 21, 2020 (2020-09-21)
OwnerFandom
Created bySean Colombo
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
LaunchedApril 6, 2006 (2006-04-06)
Current statusOffline[1]

History

On April 6, 2006, Sean Colombo, then a student at Rochester Institute of Technology, created LyricWiki. Soon after, the site won the DreamHost Site of the Month award for April 2006[9] which helped jump-start its growth since winners of the contest are announced in DreamHost's monthly newsletter, which claims to have over 50,000 subscribers.

Motive Force LLC, the parent company of LyricWiki, was the target of a lawsuit brought forth against it by the National Music Publishers Association.[10] As a result, the site migrated to Wikia, which had a blanket licensing arrangement with Gracenote to provide lyrics,[11] and blocked access to certain songs' full lyrics via API.[12]

Application programming interface and apps

The site allowed programmatic access to the contents of its database through a web API.[13] Following a 2009 agreement with licensors, queried lyrics may be displayed partially with a link to their respective web page.[14] This API has been leveraged to create plugins for many media players including Winamp,[15] Amarok,[16] Windows Media Player,[15] iTunes,[17] musikCube,[15] foobar2000,[15] ITunes via Mac OS X Dashboard,[18] and more.[19] LyricWiki has also released a Facebook application called "LyricWiki Challenge" which is a social, competitive game based on identifying lyrics from popular songs in several genres.[20] Though, since early 2016, API has been discontinued due to licensing restrictions.[14]

Wikia also developed a mobile app called Lyrically that utilized the lyric database of LyricWiki and displayed lyrics based on the song being played.[21]

Edit lock and closure

On April 2, 2019, LyricWiki was closed to editing by Fandom (formerly Wikia) for repeated violations of the site's terms of service. The reasoning for this was that Fandom did not approve of images and lyrics that are "overly" sexual and/or shock people, aiming to be a "family-friendly site".[22] The site was shut down completely on September 21, 2020. Prior to the shutdown, a notice on the wiki stated that a data dump would not be offered;[23] however, dumps are available on the "Closed Wiki" landing page that now appears on the site.[24]

References
  1. Sannse. "Community Portal § Closing the wiki to editing". LyricWiki. Archived from the original on 2019-04-14. Retrieved 2019-04-17.
  2. Woods, Dan; Thoeny, Peter (2007). Wikis for Dummies. John Wiley & Sons. p. 76. ISBN 978-0-470-04399-8. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  3. "List of largest wikis". Meta-wiki. Wikimedia Foundation. 2013-03-01. Archived from the original on 2010-07-06. Retrieved 2010-07-02.
  4. "Statistics - Lyric Wiki". Retrieved 2013-03-11.
  5. "Lyric Wiki Review". Webuser. Archived from the original on December 31, 2006. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  6. Boguschewski, Frank (2006). Websites aktuell (in German). c't. Archived from the original on 2009-05-07. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  7. "LyricWiki:Copyrights". LyricWiki. Archived from the original on 2012-03-13. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
  8. "LyricWiki Copyrights". Archived from the original on 2016-06-02.
  9. "DreamHost Site of the Month". DreamHost. Archived from the original on 2009-03-22. Retrieved 2009-05-07.
  10. "Theregister.co.uk". The Register. Archived from the original on 2017-08-10. Retrieved 2017-08-10.
  11. "Lyrics.wikia.com". Archived from the original on 2009-09-05. Retrieved 2009-09-11.
  12. "LyricWiki API Developrs". Google Groups. Archived from the original on 2012-11-07. Retrieved 2013-03-11.
  13. "LyricWiki API Profile". programmableweb.com. 2008-03-16. Archived from the original on 2009-04-21. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  14. "LyricWiki API". Archived from the original on 2016-01-17.
  15. "LyricWiki" (in French). luminescence-software.org. Archived from the original on 2009-07-21. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  16. "Amarok LyricWiki.org Lyrics". KDE-Apps.org. Archived from the original on 2009-01-21. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  17. "ilyrics". Google Code. Archived from the original on 2009-02-27. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  18. "Harmonic". mindquirk. Archived from the original on 2009-07-04. Retrieved 2009-07-11.
  19. "LyricWiki Plugins". LyricWiki. Archived from the original on 2012-03-13. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  20. "LyricWiki Challenge | Facebook". Facebook. Retrieved 2009-05-04.
  21. "Help:Lyrically Lyrics App". Archived from the original on 2017-08-01.
  22. Sannse. "Fandom management explain their policies on the LyricWiki Community Portal". Archived from the original on 2019-04-05. Retrieved 2019-04-05.
  23. "LyricWiki | Fandom". lyrics.fandom.com. Archived from the original on 2020-08-30. Retrieved 2022-01-12.
  24. "Healthsoft". Lyrics Wiki. Archived from the original on 2022-10-21. Retrieved 2022-10-21.
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