Labels don't hold copyright on the lyrics or any other part of the lyrics, tablature. Labels only hold copyright to the original recordings.

We didn't have a relationship with the publishers for our artists, as this is a separate deal that the artists make with other companies.

All we did was ask the publishing companies involved (i.e. Sony ATV - http://www.sonyatv.com/en-uk/ and EMI Music Publishing - http://www.emimusicpub.com/ ) whether we could reproduce user-contributed interpretations of lyrics.

Both of the publishing companies involved said yes, as from their perspective anything that helped promote the song and would increase the awareness of the song and therefore the likelihood of the song being used in advertising, film or other contexts was good for them. They also liked that we didn't reproduce official tablature as that recommended that product of theirs too.

So, we asked, and everyone said yes.

If you don't ask, your first interaction is probably going to be with their legal teams who are less inclined to even think yes.