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Google Music The Courts

Genius Sues Google For 'No Less Than $50M', Alleging 'Anticompetitive Practices' Over Lyrics (musicbusinessworldwide.com) 69

Posted by msmash from the kettle-calling-the-pot-black dept.
The company behind Lyrics website Genius, Genius Media Group, is suing Google for "unethical, unfair and anticompetitive" behavior. From a report: Genius alleges that traffic to its site started to drop because its lyrics -- which are annotated by its contributors -- are being copied, and then published by Google via the tech giant's lyrics partner, LyricFind. The lawsuit was filed in New York on Tuesday (December 3) and seeks "no less than $50 million" in "combined minimum damages" from both Google and Canada-based LyricFind. "Defendants Google LLC and LyricFind have been caught red-handed misappropriating content from Genius's website, which they have exploited -- and continue to exploit -- for their own financial benefit." The suit reads: "One of Genius's primary services is the development and maintenance of a vast repository of annotated music lyrics, some of which are artist-supplied and many of which are transcribed and refined by a community of over two million Genius contributors."
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Genius Sues Google For 'No Less Than $50M', Alleging 'Anticompetitive Practices' Over Lyrics More

Genius Sues Google For 'No Less Than $50M', Alleging 'Anticompetitive Practices' Over Lyrics

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  • Isn't this old fucking news? Is it "news" again today because of a filing in New York?

    Either way - yes, Google absolutely steals their shit, and they should be punished for it.
    However they likely won't be, just like they weren't punished when they were violating copyright by scanning and reproducing every single book they could get their hands on.

    • just like they weren't punished when they were violating copyright by scanning and reproducing every single book they could get their hands on.

      Seems that this is Genius' business model regarding song lyrics. Most of their database are not provided or licensed by the artists.

      • Then the artists should sue Genius, and Genius sues Google, and everybody's happy!

      • Genius worked out a licensing deal a few years ago after being sued.

        Shortly after, they got busted by Google for a fraudulent link scheme designed to boost their Google rank.

        • I should word that differently (Score:4, Informative)

          by raymorris ( 2726007 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @04:11PM (#59481982) Journal

          "Fraudulent links" is probably too strong.
          They had a scheme designed to manipulate search engine results using practices that search engines consider "cheating".

          As search engines normally do, Google eventually discovered it and Genius manipulated themselves to e dustbin. That's normally what happens with "awesome search engine hacks" - they eventually backfire big time.

      • Most of their database are not provided or licensed by the artists.

        So? Official lyrics provided by the artist/publisher are very rare now.
        Genius is creating them by transcribing the songs.

        Google is taking that exact work done by Genius and merely copying it.

        • For all that work they're doing, they don't have any rights to the material. So they have no grounds to sue.

          • Actually, they do. Genius employed stenography into the lyrics by presenting non-printing characters in unique ways that spelled hidden messages. As such, the way the content was presented is copyrightable and Google copied said copyrighted work. Whether the work has value is of debate, as non-printing characters donâ(TM)t convey meaning to the user of the information, just confirm its source.

            • Re: Isn't This Old? (Score:4, Informative)

              by TWX ( 665546 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @04:52PM (#59482180)

              Fictious entries and copyright traps are often not successful.

              There are numerous examples [wikipedia.org] where these copyright traps failed, either because the information is deemed factual listings and is not protected by copyright, or because the plaintiff could not demonstrate that their value-add was sufficient for copyright protection.

              I don't see Genius having a lot of grounds here, even if they did attempt to plant copyright traps or fictious entries into their data. They did not write the songs. They cannot claim copyright protection to those songs. Only the recognized owners of the copyrights for those songs, usually the songwriters, appear to have cases, and so far we have not seen legal action from them.

            • Genius employed stenography into the lyrics by presenting non-printing characters in unique ways that spelled hidden messages. As such, the way the content was presented is copyrightable and Google copied said copyrighted work.

              That's steganography, not stenography. And works great for proving infringement on otherwise non-copyrightable things such as facts (map companies do this).

              However, their modified lyrics would be a derivative work of the original lyrics and as such their copyright claim is invalid.

            • I think Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co. pretty much shuts down any copyright claims on that basis. I think they have a much stronger shot at showing that Google's behavior is anticompetitive than trying to prove that their punctuation is a creative work.

          • Maybe, maybe not. They don't own the original song, that's for sure. But the song and the lyrics to the song are not the same thing. The copyright on the song would cover the lyrics as well, but if the song writers don't publish the lyrics, then the work Genius (or it's users, rather) adds in transcribing the lyrics could be considered a kind of derivative work, much like a translation of a book into a different language. That's probably their argument, anyways. Whether it's valid or not, I have no idea, I'

    • Re:Isn't This Old? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Dallas May ( 4891515 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @03:53PM (#59481898)

      Google licenses the lyrics. They pay for them.
      Genius licenses the lyrics from the same people. They pay for them too.

      Genius doesn't own the lyrics. They license them just like Google.
      No one is stealing anything.

      • Radio stations have a "compulsory license" to play any song they can get their hands on provided they pay at a rate of one penny per listener (or as close as the ratings people estimate)... but then comes the problem of getting the song into their database. A lot of 80s music was re-released on CDs, but a lot of 80s music was lost because radio couldn't find a copy.

        This lawsuit is claiming Google culled their lyrics off of the Genius server, rather than going to the record labels. That's a tort if it's true

        • This lawsuit is claiming Google culled their lyrics off of the Genius server, rather than going to the record labels. That's a tort if it's true.

          Why? Genius offers the lyrics for anyone to download. Genius doesn't own the copyright to the lyrics and Google has a license to publish the lyrics, hence Genius has no right to control the lyrics from its website.

          • Genius offers the lyrics for anyone to download for personal non-commercial use, which Google's use does not qualify as. Genius doesn't own the copyright, but it does own the severs hosting the data being used, and as such can set terms and conditions on the use of those servers. One of those terms of use is "you agree not to sell, license, rent, modify, distribute, copy, reproduce, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, publish, adapt, edit or create derivative works from any Genius Content. Use o

            • The question becomes: how enforcible is a T&C for a website when it attempts to apply copyright-like restrictions on content not owned by the website operator?

              • I'm not sure it'd really matter for something like this. Your local library doesn't own the copyrights to the books it holds, but it still can apply copyright-like usage restrictions to how you can use their copies (no xeroxing was a common one). Genius might even be required by their licensing agreement with the copyright holders to try and prevent unlicensed distribution, which their T&C seem to do...

                • Once again, the issue isn't whether any company or organization claims to be able to restrict your actions, but whether those restrictions will hold up in court.

        • Considering some of the obviously wrong or misspelled lyrics I've seen in Google searches that have traced back to Genius, among others, they're certainly pulling from those sites. I'm not sure it's an obvious tort, though. Genius is paying for the right to display the lyrics, but since they don't own the lyrics (even if they're erroneously transcribed), I'm not sure they have a claim to the traffic. The ad revenue they get from visits is a critical part of their business model, but it seems to be, from the

          • Genius owns the presentation of the lyrics, and Google is copying that presentation. That's why it's a clear violation of copyright. Neither one owns the lyrics, but that's irrelevant as it's not at issue here.

            • That's absolutely relevant. The work is a derivative work, and the ownership of that copyright falls back on the original work.

      • Google licenses the lyrics. They pay for them.

        No they don't. They're stealing from Genius directly. They're not paying for official lyrics from artists/publishers (which rarely exist today). They're scraping Genius and regurgitating it. Genius proved this.

      • Semantic arguments over the definition of the term 'steal' (or theft) not-with-standing, I wouldn't be so sure that no crime has occurred:

        Copyright typically extends to cover original compilations of data. However the Courts have been careful to make clear that such protection does not cover the data itself but rather the particular collection of it. ...

        Databases are protected by the United States Copyright Act 31 as compilations, defined as a "work formed by the collection and assembling of pre-existing materials or of data that are selected, coordinated, or arranged in such a way that the resulting work as a whole constitutes an original work of authorship.32"

        Source: http://www.mondaq.com/australia/x/290668/Copyright/Can+a+database+be+protected+by+copyright [mondaq.com]

    • "However they likely won't be, just like they weren't punished when they were violating copyright"

      There is no such thing.

  • Hope google loses bad (Score:3)

    by SirAstral ( 1349985 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @03:15PM (#59481742)

    But I also think this lawsuit is bullshit at the same time.

    But I so love the irony of IP fucks getting fucked over by their own IP laws...

    It's soo fluffy!

    • It seems almost like there was another story in the past explaining how Google was caught red-handed by Morse code punctuation mistakes that Genius had added.

      I guess you probably don't pay any attention to news, especially not something as nerdy as Morse code punctuation steganography.

      Kinda pathetic that you managed to form such a stupid opinion completely from ignorance, though. It is almost as if you didn't even know that you didn't even know!

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Luthair ( 847766 )

      When exactly has Google been suing people for IP infringement? Google losing here would be very bad because we don't want people to be able to claim copyright over compiling information.

      One wonders whether they even have standing to sue, wouldn't any fingerprinting they've done be a derivative work of the songwriter?

      • Google was sued into a mess when YouTube didn't have its copyright system right...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        I wonder if they are trying to claim copyright over the typesetting.

        They inserted some extra spaces into the text, which is how they know that the other sites copied it. They copied the redundant spaces too.

        While you can't copyright compiled information or other people's lyrics, you can copyright the typesetting. It's similar to how you can't copyright out of copyright books but you can copyright your particular layout of the text, or your particular recording of classical music etc.

  • None of these companies own this IP. They also publish it publicly on their sites. Unless they are stealing it from behind a password protected page (they are not) there is no case here. Screw all of these companies!

    • Google licenses the lyrics.

      • And they steal them from Genius. You can license lyrics all you want. It doesn't mean you actual get a file that contains them. Artists and publishers rarely publish official lyrics anymore unless it's getting a karaoke release. This is why the lyrics you can find are often so fucking wrong. They're machine generated, Mechanical Turk generated, or similar from the song itself (and often completely unintelligible even with a dedicated, conscious human trying to transcribe).

    • More like a pickpocket suing the burglar.

  • Google's / LyricFind's lyrics are shit! (Score:4, Informative)

    by Synonymous Cowered ( 6159202 ) on Tuesday December 03, 2019 @03:29PM (#59481818)
    I can't count the number of times that I google lyrics for a song, and the lyrics that google puts at the top of its search results are absolute shit (and say "Source:LyricFind"). At least a third of songs I google have something blatently wrong in them. I just googled a couple of songs and verified incorrect lyrics. I then checked those songs on Genius, and they actually have the correct lyrics (so props to them on that). So clearly either google is getting some of this from a different source, or Genius is poisoning them by detecting google and intentionally feeding them incorrect lyrics. From the article: "LyricFind argued that the lyrics it uses are taken from multiple sources before being edited, corrected and then published". I can say definitively they're doing an absolute shit job of editing and correcting them before publishing them.

    • To be fair - if you're using The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" as the test case, nobody knows what the lyrics actually are.

      • To be fair - if you're using The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie" as the test case, nobody knows what the lyrics actually are.

        "Unintelligible at any speed." --- Verdict of Congressional committee looking into accusations of unsavory content in the song.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          Wow, they investigated it for 31 months, two and a half years, before giving up. By which point declaring it obscene would probably have had minimal effect anyway.

        • LOL. I thought you were joking, or at best citing an article from The Onion. But nope: https://www.history.com/this-d... [history.com]

          • As recorded in crummy conditions and in a single take by the Kingsmen in 1963, lyrics like “A fine little girl, she wait for me” came out sounding like “A phlg mlmrl hlurl, duh vvvr me”

            Lucky thing that didn't call up Cthulhu, as much as it was played back then.

    • This is because this is old news and Google switched to a different source after they got caught red handed stealing from Genius.
      Genius manipulated the punctuation in their lyrics to basically ID them, and saw Google was serving them up with the same encoded punctuation.

  • It's so easy to make a scraping script that can walk a site and collect everything.. It doesn't seem like a good business plan to make it that easy for people to steal your "property" by basically hosting a massive set of static pages and calling it a business.
    • On the other hand, you want all the lyrics as static pages so they can be search engine indexable...... because that's where your traffic comes from.
      • So in other words, if you run a site you can get searches with content but you had better find value in the immediate changes or someone will just copy it in the end. If your value goes with the copy then you are screwed.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Luthair ( 847766 )
        Maybe don't create a business based on compiling information and do something original instead?
  • no one can deny that google straight up copies content from peoples web site and uses it for their own purposes and benefit
  • Advertisements or is there a subscription service or something? If you rely on advertising views for all revenue, well that doesn't read like sound business model (pun intended).
  • Remember this? Same shit, different day.

  • From skimming the article, it looks like the argument is that Google is reaping where is has not sown by using the lyrics provided by Genius' users in its own search results. It reminds me a bit of a case where a newspaper was copying the facts from stories out of another newspaper (or wire service), and publishing them—they were enjoined from courts from continuing the practice.

    The key difference is that Google has a license to the content from the content creator, and Genius' contribution is litera

  • Be like EU. Go for the real $(or âs). Ask for 1-2B.

  • ... 'cause I'm a musician and I never heard of these bitches.

  • 17 U.S.C. is the Copyright Code in the United States, and as it has been revised several times it ought to contain all the relevant information. It does not. This document explains any additions:
    https://www.copyright.gov/titl... [copyright.gov]

    It makes reference to two amendments, namely the Amendments to the Copyright Act as a result of the Orrin G. Hatch–Bob Goodlatte Music Modernization Act (https://www.copyright.gov/legislation/2018_mma_amendments.pdf) and the Amendments to the Copyright Act as a result of the

  • Maybe Genius should update their robots.txt so that Google won't index the site.

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