Peeve Farm

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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets

  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.

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Wednesday, January 22, 2003
15:42 - Any idealistic programmers in the house?	(top)
You know what I'd like to see? A music file format, similar to MP3 or AAC, with support for multiple channels and ID3 fields and so on... but more than that, and crucially, with support for embedded song lyrics. Lyrics wouldn't take up more than a couple of kilobytes; they might even fit into a pre-existing ID3 field. But more than just bare text-- how about the ability to have the embedded lyrics keyed into the music on a word-for-word basis? At certain time-points in the song, it would have a callout to the textual lyric representation of whatever's being sung. Hello, follow-the-little-bouncing-ball audio players! Farewell, the era of not knowing what in the hell such-and-such an artist was singing about! It'd be the beginning of a whole new way of enjoying music, I think-- easily the equal of the advent of portable MP3 players as a milestone in music-consuming technology. Now let's talk logistics. You know that the RIAA would be all over this; they already pounce on any large high-profile site that attempts to publish song lyrics from commercial music. And if there were to be some kind of centralized song-lyrics database, working like CDDB/Gracenote does for ID3 tags, you can be sure that it would only be available by the RIAA's blessing, and on a paid subscription basis at best. But who says that has to be a fundamental part of the file format's vision? Users should be able to insert their own lyrics, and to mark their own keying points, using freely available software (or shareware) like what allows them to create MP3s today. Then the onus would be on the RIAA to step up to bat and provide centralized song data, and they wouldn't be starting from a position of power, either. So the file format itself could be something totally open; call it "MP3-L" or something. And since there's nothing fundamentally illegal about the format, there's nothing to stop open-source developers from creating something like this, and no reason why it should have to be (for instance) Microsoft or Apple or Real that creates this standard. If this format were to become popular (and I think it does provide valuable functionality that many, including myself, would love to have available), then it'd be another chance for the various companies to show their respective attitudes toward open standards and the spirit of grass-roots development that would be behind this kind of idea in the first place. Has this already been done? It quite possibly has, and I just haven't noticed. But if it hasn't, why not? Wouldn't it be cool?