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Lyrics Sites Are Evil
31st May 2005
Song lyrics sites are evil. Oh yes. Maybe not all of them, but in general they seem to be run by the scum of the universe.
It's pretty well known these days that pr0n sites tend to be loaded with spyware, and another common candidate is warez sites where typically your PC will be 0wned as soon as you visit. But then dirty pictures and illegal software are generally considered to be Bad Things - so what's the deal with song lyric sites?
Well.. firstly, it's an observable fact that if you take a spyware infected machine to find the source of the infection, then these sites appear time and time again. And although the majority of PCs that get infected through a browser vulnerability have visited porn sites, song lyrics sites come in at number two (at least in my fairly unscientific survey).
This may seem odd.. after all, how many times have you wondered just what the heck someone is singing and decided to look it up on Google? Just type in a phrase you *do* know along with perhaps the artist, and up will pop a LOT of results. Pick something like.. oh.. an obscure Pet Shop Boys song and you'll get 170+ matches.. for a popular Robbie Williams song you'll get nearly a thousand. (I don't advise you to go and visit these sites though).
So.. you have a ready made supply of customers, and a ready source of material. That's a great way to attract visitors.. and for the more disreputable lyrics site webmasters, it's a great source of machines to try to take control of.
Ask yourself this question - how many of those sites have licensed the lyrics they're publishing. Not many. In fact close examination of some of the so-called "lyrics" sites are riddled with errors that appear again and again on different sites. So, it's not just a question of webmasters ripping off songwriters, but the webmasters are ripping off other webmasters.
I believe that the operators of the majority of these sites have zero regard for intellectual property and knowingly rip it off from wherever they can get it - even though they know it's unlawful. Given that they're already stealing in this way, it's not a huge leap of imagination to understand that they're also after your PC.
The extent and severity of some of the spyware infections that I've seen from this sort of site is absolutely staggering. Not just popups, but keyloggers, backdoors, proxies and all sorts of other evil stuff. Sometimes machines have had to be rebuilt from scratch. And why...? Simply because someone heard a song on the radio when they were driving into work and couldn't quite work out what they were singing.
Now.. I'm no great fan of the RIAA and the like, but it seems to me that this is a case where some proper legal force could be used for everyone's benefit. Cut down on the unlicensed sites, and you cut down on the problem.. and if recording companies remember to publish those darned lyrics themselves, then they'll get all that lovely targetted traffic for their own use. And people searching for song lyrics won't get their machines hacked.
It sounds better than prosecuting kiddies, doesn't it?
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