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Now Sony sends John Fontana a stern warning over his latest Web site.
By JEANNE MALMGREN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times, published August 6, 2002
PALM HARBOR -- John Fontana got bad news in the mail again Monday. Another mammoth corporation bristling over his love of the Beatles.
Until recently Fontana, 22, was Webmaster of a 3-year-old site called beatlelyrics.com. It featured album covers, song lists, lyrics and band photos. For Fontana, who has been hearing-impaired for the past five years, it was a way to keep alive his love of the Fab Four and to connect with other fans. Nothing was sold on the site.
As reported in the St. Petersburg Times Sunday, Fontana, who lives in Palm Harbor, received a letter from a law firm representing Apple Corps. Ltd., the Beatles' corporate entity. The letter told him to get rid of the logos and album covers on the site because their presence violated copyright. It gave him one week to comply. Fontana dismantled the site and replaced it with a logo-less version at fab4lyrics.stonegauge.com.
Monday, another certified letter arrived, this one from Sony/ATV Music Publishing. Sony/ATV and Michael Jackson jointly own the lyrics for all Beatles songs.
"This reprint of the Lyrics without express authorization from Sony/ATV has caused and continues to cause Sony/ATV great and irreparable injury and is in direct violation of Sony/ATV's rights; this will not be tolerated," the letter read.
Fontana, still smarting from the skirmish with Apple Corps., was enraged.
"How am I injuring them?" he said. "I help make the song catalog worth more by helping support the market for them."
Representatives of Sony/ATV declined to comment.
Other Beatles-related Web sites feature lyrics and logos. Fontana thinks he was targeted by the legal watchdogs because his site was heavily visited, with an average of 1,000 hits a day. He sees the legal threats as unfair to fans who simply want to share the words of songs they love.
"It's like fans have no rights, besides being consumers," he said.
As of Monday afternoon Fontana's new site still contained lyrics for songs from Yellow Submarine to A Hard Day's Night. Fontana was unsure what to do next.
The letter from Sony gave Fontana a phone number to call if he had any questions.
The only problem: His hearing impediment makes using a telephone nearly impossible.