I went on the net today to see if I could get the music to “Lean On Me” by Bill Withers. I found half a dozen sites willing to sell me the score for a fee. There were no freebies. However, if I do a search for the lyrics to “Lean On Me” I can find a dozen sites where I can get the lyeics for free.
Does anyone know why this is? Am I to assume the score is worth more than the lyrics?
The lyrics sites are very likely operating without the permission of the labels, but there are many more people looking for lyrics than for scores.
Huge lyric sites occasionally get shut down, so neither is really legal. You can usually find guitar chords (I think Lean on Me is C… C Dm Em F… F Em Dm C… C Dm Em Em Dm) but that’s not technically legal either, if I’m not mistaken.
I am no music expert, but my wild guess is that maybe transcribing music into a score is more difficult than copying lyrics off the album cover? You’d also have to make that score presentable somehow (as a downloadable image or whatever) and that might cost more bandwidth or effort than plaintext lyrics.