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Google Music

'Genius' Site Said It Used Morse Code To Catch Google Stealing Song Lyrics (morningstar.com) 157

Posted by EditorDavid from the whose-line-is-it-anyway dept.
"Genius.com says its traffic is dropping because, for the past several years, Google has been publishing lyrics on its own platform, with some of them lifted directly from the music site," reports the Wall Street Journal: Google denies doing anything nefarious. Still, Genius's complaints offer a window into the challenges small tech companies can face when the unit of Alphabet Inc. starts offering competing services on its platform... Genius said it notified Google as far back as 2017, and again in an April letter, that copied transcriptions appear on Google's website. The April letter, a copy of which was viewed by the Journal, warned that reuse of Genius's transcriptions breaks the Genius.com terms of service and violates antitrust law.

"Over the last two years, we've shown Google irrefutable evidence again and again that they are displaying lyrics copied from Genius," said Ben Gross, Genius's chief strategy officer, in an email message.... Genius said it found more than 100 examples of songs on Google that came from its site. Starting around 2016, Genius made a subtle change to some of the songs on its website, alternating the lyrics' apostrophes between straight and curly single-quote marks in exactly the same sequence for every song. When the two types of apostrophes were converted to the dots and dashes used in Morse code, they spelled out the words "Red Handed."

Genius is a privately held company, and its investors include Andreessen Horowitz, Emagen Investment Group and the rapper Nas... Genius clients include the music streaming website Spotify Technology SA and Apple Inc.
The article also notes March study from web-analytics firm Jumpshot Inc. which found 62% of mobile searches on Google now don't result in the user clicking through to a non-Google web site.
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'Genius' Site Said It Used Morse Code To Catch Google Stealing Song Lyrics More

'Genius' Site Said It Used Morse Code To Catch Google Stealing Song Lyrics

Comments Filter:

  • The above subject is 'do evil' in Morse code.

    • Re:Google's new motto ''-.. --- / . ...- .. .-..'' (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Sunday June 16, 2019 @05:24PM (#58773100)

      Except that Genius.com doesn't own the copyright for the lyrics either.

      Google may be violating someone's copyright, but that someone is not Genius.com.

      Genius.com may be transcribing the lyrics from the audio, but non-creative direct transcriptions are not protected by copyright.

      Car analogy: A valet takes a photo of your keys so he can steal your car later. Then a 2nd valet takes a photo of the photo. Then the 1st valet complains that his rights are being violated.

      • Re:Google's new motto ''-.. --- / . ...- .. .-..'' (Score:5, Informative)

        by suutar ( 1860506 ) on Sunday June 16, 2019 @06:05PM (#58773212)

        they didn't say it violated copyright, they said it violated Genius' terms of service and antitrust law.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          I went to Genius.com just now and could view lyrics without agreeing to any ToS. So it seems unlikely that Google agreed to any ToS, therefore there can be no violation.

  • Antitrust is Coming (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Sunday June 16, 2019 @04:04PM (#58772882)

    It's things like this that really help bolster a strong anti-trust case against Google and Facebook.

    At this point the misbehavior is so strong, across so many facets, I tend to think such action is inevitable...

  • I fail to see how "sharing" lyrics is theft.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Genius is upset that Google is not compensating them for their reposing of other people's IP without compensation.

  • How many songs have this many apostrophes/
  • The number of tech-savvy people who gush over Gmail, Google Docs, etc is rather astounding. Do you really value your privacy so little that you are willing to trade it all away for "free" services. The part that I find even more amazing are businesses that pay to use Google services.

    • Yes.

      My life is incredibly simple and plain. I don't have any private information that I wouldn't be willing to share. So If I am going to get convenient free service for useless information then fine.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        So you do not mind that that makes you a perfect scapegoat when "they" need to make an example out of somebody? Giving the authorities a personality profile is always risky and never a good idea.

        • A scapegoat for what?

          I go to work, I sleep, I do a few simple hobbies at home in between that.

          I am a single guy and have no plans to change that.

          Making all this information available means that anyone can easily see that this who I am and what I do.

          There's nothing to hide.

          • Re: (Score:3)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            A scapegoat for what?

            Anything really. Anybody can be made a scapegoat and the more you know about them, the easier it is. Maybe the day your number will come up is just a slow news day.

            • Doesn't really make sense to me.

              If everything in my life is transparent and public, then anyone can easily see what i've done.

              They can easily see that what someone says is nowhere remotely close to anything I have ever said or done etc.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by gweihir ( 88907 )

                They could easily see that if they were looking. Most people do not. They start throwing stones.

    • The gushing is usually inversely proportional to their ability to maintain a mail service or their willingness to pay for a service.

      A cognitive dissonance is pretty high. A few people actually do like it, of course, but usually I hear nonstop bitching whenever Google doubles the whitespace but then it dies down pretty quickly because they have few available options that let them be cheap and lazy.

  • LOL! Busted! (Score:5, Funny)

    by p51d007 ( 656414 ) on Sunday June 16, 2019 @04:34PM (#58772996)
    Learned morse code in my teens, took the test in my early 20's, been a licensed operator for 40 years. But, the number of times I've used morse code, you can count on one hand. Learned it for the test (required at the time), but never used it. BUT, in difficult band conditions (ie: CME's, sunspots etc), morse code will usually get through, where voice sometimes, will not. Plus, it's kind of like cursive writing today. Kids don't know it, adults don't know it, so it's kind of a cryptic code. I remember when one of my nephews was around 7, I told him, go tell your mom three dits, four dits, to dits, dah and see what she says. She did and I said I taught your son a "dirty word". She said which one? I said SHIT. Yeah, she wasn't too happy, but sometimes even today, now he's in his 20's, he'll say three dits, four dits, to dits dah, instead of saying it in front of his mom.

    • I was going to learn morse. Then I discovered PSK modes. PSK31 will push through where even morse struggles.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Pyramid ( 57001 )

        PSK31 still requires a better effective SNR than CW Morse. Modes like Olivia, FT8, JSCall, JT65, etc. soundly outperform either, however.

        • If you want to drop all pretense of conversation and just admit you want to collect QSO cards without actually talking to anyone. Which is most of what PSK is anyway, but at least you have the option of turning off macros.

    • Re: LOL! Busted! (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Plus, it's kind of like cursive writing today. Kids don't know it, adults don't know it, so it's kind of a cryptic code.

      I've never yet met anybody that didn't know handwriting yet. Can someone confirm that American adults don't know cursive anymore?? I know they stopped teaching it to the younger generation, but what happened to the adults?

  • Now wait for Google to run str.replace(/[‘’]/g,"'"); in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

  • Seriously, Google is a disaster. They still have top search engine, but they are also quite evil. When the google boys said do no evil, I was excited, but always said that it would last only until a new CEO took over. Now, the current CEO is pretty evil.

  • Seems more complicated than it first appears (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Solandri ( 704621 ) on Sunday June 16, 2019 @05:41PM (#58773144)
    Genius doesn't own the copyright on these lyrics - the individual song writers and lyricists do. So the only way Genius can sue over this is if they have permission from the songwriters guild [songwritersguild.com] to reproduce the lyrics. (Being a free service doesn't give them a pass - the copyright holder as monopoly control over all distribution, not just distribution for commercial purposes.) Transcribing lyrics but changing the pattern of apostrophes is not transformative enough to create a new copyright.

    A quick search says that's what Genius has done [nytimes.com] (paywalled). Genius entered a licensing agreement with the music labels to offer the lyrics on their site. That brings up an interesting question. I assume Google is also licensed to reproduce these lyrics (they wouldn't be offering them if they weren't). So the question really boils down to: if two entities are both licensed to reproduce the same thing from the copyright holder, can they copy from each other? I would have to think the answer is "yes." If I'm licensed to play music at a restaurant, I do not have to arrange a recording session with the band and create my own recording of their music. I can just buy the CD from a store and play it in my restaurant.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      It's a TOS thing, not a copyright thing.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      If I'm licensed to play music at a restaurant, I do not have to arrange a recording session with the band and create my own recording of their music. I can just buy the CD from a store and play it in my restaurant.

      But, can you go to another establishment (say, a competing restaurant for example), and record the song being played there, and then play it back in your own restaurant?

    • Omg, no. A thousand times no.

      I think it sad that you seem to believe that google would adhere to someone else's copyrights. Go look up the book publishers vs google case.

      As for the rest, having the right to reproduce the lyrics is not the same as having the right to copy the efforts of someone else who had the rights to the lyrics. Google needs to do their own work not rip off someone else's. Why is this not stunningly obvious?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )

      Does Google reproduce them in full? If they don't then it may fall under fair use.

      There were a number of court cases around copyright & search, one would assume they would have already set precedent in terms what is allowable /shrug

  • It's not illegal. Genius is probably violating. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by mveloso ( 325617 ) on Sunday June 16, 2019 @10:43PM (#58773930)

    The Supremes have ruled that a compilation of data isn't enough for a copyright. In addition, genius.com doesn't have a right to those lyrics, since they're copyrighted by someone else, so they shouldn't be commercially exploiting them.

  • Do you guys not have lawyers?

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