Genius accuses Google of copying its lyrics data

guest · Jun 16, 2019

Genius accuses Google of copying its lyrics data
Apostrophes were reportedly the telltale clues
June 16, 2019
https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/16/genius-accuses-google-of-copying-lyrics/

Have you found yourself using Google's lyrics results more than visiting individual lyrics sites? You're not alone -- and Genius thinks underhanded tactics are involved. The company has accused Google of not only hurting its traffic with its lyrics cards, but of sometimes grabbing Genius' lyrics verbatim. The evidence is in the apostrophes, Genius said.

Google denied anything sinister in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. The company takes copyright "very seriously" and held its sourcing partners "accountable" for honoring the terms to its agreements -- it doesn't create the panels themselves. A key source for song info, LyricFind, told the WSJ that its staff "do not source" lyrics from Genius.

There haven't been formal actions yet, but Genius has alleged that Google was both violating antitrust law and its terms of service. It said it alerted Google to the reported misuse as soon as 2017.
Genius might not have much success if it pursues a case directly, since it doesn't own the lyrics -- it's just allowed to display them.
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guest · Jun 16, 2019

mood said: ↑

https://www.engadget.com/2019/06/16/genius-accuses-google-of-copying-lyrics/
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updated article:

Update 6/16 6:55PM ET: Google has sent its entire statement to Engadget. While it's very familiar, the company added that it would end lyrics agreements if it finds partners aren't "upholding good practices." You can read the full statement below.

"The lyrics displayed in the information boxes and in Knowledge Panels on Google Search are licensed from a variety of sources and are not scraped from sites on the web. We take data quality and creator rights very seriously, and hold our licensing partners accountable to the terms of our agreement. We're investigating this issue with our data partners and if we find that partners are not upholding good practices we will end our agreements."
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guest · Jun 18, 2019

Google explains how it licenses song lyrics for Search, will add attribution
June 18, 2019
https://9to5google.com/2019/06/18/google-explains-search-lyrics/

Over the weekend, a kerfuffle emerged over Google Search allegedly copying song lyrics from Genius. Google argued that it only licenses information from third-parties, and today published a longer explanation of how lyrics in Search work.

The Wall Street Journal over the weekend reported on an accusation that Search was taking content from Genius. According to Google today, it does “not crawl or scrape websites to source these lyrics.”
When available, Google will pay music publishers for the right to display lyrics. However, in most cases, publishers do not have digital transcripts, with the search engine instead turning to third-party “lyrics content providers.”
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Google: How we help you find lyrics in Google Search

guest · Jun 19, 2019

What the Google-Genius Copyright Dispute Is Really About
June 18, 2019
https://www.wired.com/story/what-the-google-genius-copyright-dispute-is-really-about/

[...] Genius publicly accused search juggernaut Google of stealing its crowdsourced song transcripts and natively publishing them on its search pages
Doing so, Genius alleges, hurts Genius’ bottom line by diverting traffic away from Genius in favor of keeping people on Google’s monetized search page instead.

Microsoft Bing and Amazon Music also appear to have Genius-watermarked lyrics.
Keeping the focus on Google may be a way to emphasize Google’s market power and thereby its anticompetitiveness, Bergmayer suggests.
Even if Genius has no copyright claim here, Google or its contractors copying from Genius still might be unfair from a competition standpoint.

“It’s still potentially an antitrust problem if Google is using its search monopoly to enter some unrelated market and tie that product to the search engine in a way that gives it a huge advantage over competitors,” Bergmayer says.
At its most basic, Google is a repository, [...] If Google imperils the ability of those sites to make money, Google imperils itself. “It's like, are you eating your own seed corn?” Bergmayer says
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guest · Dec 3, 2019

Genius sues Google over allegedly stolen song lyrics
It’s asking for $50 million from Google and LyricFind
December 3, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/3/20993621/genius-google-lawsuit-stolen-lyrics-lyricfind

Lyrics website Genius is suing Google, saying the company continues to knowingly copy its song lyrics and use them in search results. Genius also alleges that Google’s practices are anticompetitive, and it’s asking for $50 million in damages from Google and a partner.

Genius alleged earlier this year that, in some instances, those lyrics were copied from its website, something it was able to track through a clever watermarking scheme. Genius is now suing over the allegedly lifted lyrics, accusing Google and a lyrics partner, LyricFind, of breaching its terms of service.
The complaint, filed in Brooklyn, New York, on December 3rd, says that Google’s behavior not only violates its terms of service agreement, but it profits off of the “ten years and tens of millions of dollars” Genius has spent to build its business and database, and so it amounts to unfair competition.

Genius’ case doesn’t look particularly strong, John Bergmayer, legal director with the consumer advocacy group Public Knowledge, tells The Verge. But Google may still have reason to worry, given rising concerns about the company’s scope and size.

“I think that Google should actually take the claims very seriously, not because any one of the particular legal arguments is a slam dunk winner,” Bergmayer says.
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guest · Aug 11, 2020

Google dodges lawsuit over Genius lyric scraping
Genius technically doesn’t have ownership over the lyrics
August 11, 2020
https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/...scraping-copyright-yelp-antitrust-competition

On Tuesday, Google beat back a lawsuit over alleged scraping of song lyrics from Genius, a lyrics and commentary site. A federal judge in the Eastern District of New York found that while the claims of scraping were credible, the scraping did not constitute a copyright violation, and the lawsuit was dismissed as a result.

Genius alleged in December 2019 that Google was lifting its lyrics.
Earlier that year, Google published a blog post proclaiming the company does not “crawl or scrape websites to source these lyrics.
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Judge Margo Brodie argued that despite Genius’ claims, the website isn’t the actual copyright holder, according to The Hollywood Reporter. Although Genius users collected the lyrics, the lyrics themselves still belong to the musicians who wrote them.
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