Darryl Ballantyne originally conceived LyricFind in 2000 with Mohamed Moutadayne and Chris Book at Ontario’s University of Waterloo to be the largest, most accurate destination for lyrics on the Internet. Officially launched in 2004, the company pioneered the licensed digital lyrics space, successfully negotiating the first-ever mass lyrics licensing deal with EMI Music Publishing in 2005. Since then, Darryl has grown LyricFind to be the largest legal, licensed lyrics database in the world, with millions of licensed tracks available and hundreds of lyrics sublicensing clients. LyricFind has established licensing relationships with over 4,000 music publishers, The Harry Fox Agency, APRA/AMCOS, CSDEM, APEM, and many more.
The company now delivers services to hundreds of websites and music services that want to enhance their music products with lyrics, including Pandora, Deezer, Microsoft’s Bing, Amazon, Plex, Roon, MetroLyrics, Shazam, SoundHound, LyricsMode, SongMeanings, iHeartRadio, and many more.
As an authority on licensing and digital content, Darryl has spoken at industry events including SF Music Tech, Canadian Music Week, Music Matters, Digital Music Forum, Music & Media Finland, CMJ, MIDEM, SXSW, and more.
Before launching LyricFind, Darryl was Manager of Digital Development & Distribution at EMI Music in Los Angeles, where he was involved in deals with companies such as MusicMatch, Napster, and iTunes. Darryl earned a Bachelor of Mathematics with a Business minor from the University of Waterloo.
