# Web Question: Why do you have to pay for Music score but not lyrics?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-question-why-do-you-have-to-pay-for-music-score-but-not-lyrics/315054>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [August 1, 2005, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-question-why-do-you-have-to-pay-for-music-score-but-not-lyrics/315054 "2005-08-01T00:25:43Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Xurando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/b77776/32.png) [@Xurando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xurando)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2005, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-question-why-do-you-have-to-pay-for-music-score-but-not-lyrics/315054/1 "2005-08-01T00:25:43Z")

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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?

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**Author:** ![ultrafilter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/3d9bf3/32.png) [@ultrafilter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultrafilter)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2005, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-question-why-do-you-have-to-pay-for-music-score-but-not-lyrics/315054/2 "2005-08-01T00:33:31Z")

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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.

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**Author:** ![TJdude825](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@TJdude825](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TJdude825)\
**Post date:** [August 1, 2005, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-question-why-do-you-have-to-pay-for-music-score-but-not-lyrics/315054/3 "2005-08-01T01:17:44Z")

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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.

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**Author:** ![Reply](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/reply/32/15952_2.png) [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)\
**Post date:** [August 3, 2005, 7:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/web-question-why-do-you-have-to-pay-for-music-score-but-not-lyrics/315054/4 "2005-08-03T07:29:40Z")

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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.