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Business News Digital Labels & Publishers
Deezer leads project to provide access to multi-lingual translations of lyrics in Europe
By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 14 December 2022
Deezer has formed a new consortium with companies including Zebralution and LyricFind. Called BELEM, the EU-funded project aims to make properly translated lyrics in a variety of European languages more readily available online. This, it says, will not only “break down cultural barriers”, but also help rights owners to better monetise those lyrics.
The four year project has been granted €2 million from the EU’s Creative Europe programme and will promote the benefits of localised, human-translated lyrics to rightsholders, with a particular focus on demonstrating the commercial value of providing access to properly translated (rather than machine approximated) lyrics.
“In the digital age, it’s imperative for music to be localised, universal and accessible”, says Zebralution’s Florian von Hoyer. “Lyrics hold a vital function in understanding music. But language barriers present a major obstacle”.
“Through human-translated lyrics”, he goes on, “we can help bridge the gap of understanding, expose artists to entirely new audiences, and help those artists to monetise their lyrics and the translations better. This project has a grand ambition – to empower artists and connect cultures to transform European music revenues and understanding”.
Deezer’s Ludovic Pouilly adds: “Lyrics can be a truly powerful addition to a song, and as the home of music and a French-founded company operating worldwide, we understand how challenging language barriers can be for artists with international ambitions”.
“BELEM offers an exhilarating prospect”, he continues, “to help artists reach more audiences and for the listeners to better and intuitively understand the music they are listening to. Our core mission is to help music fans on Deezer find new favourites and expand their horizons; our work with BELEM will greatly help achieve this goal for the benefit of all”.
Prior to launching BELEM, Deezer and LyricFind already worked together to create French, German, Spanish and Portuguese translations of lyrics for 10,000 songs.
