Google Never Agreed It Wouldn't Copy Genius' Song Lyrics, US Official Says (arstechnica.com) 21
An anonymous reader shares a report: After song lyrics website Genius sued Google in 2019 for allegedly breaching its terms of service by copying its lyrics transcriptions in search results, the United States Supreme Court invited the US solicitor general, Elizabeth Prelogar, to weigh in on how the US viewed the case. The question before Prelogar was whether federal copyright law preempted Genius' terms of service, which prohibits any of its website visitors from copying lyrics for commercial uses. Yesterday, Prelogar responded, filing a brief that sided with Google. She denied that Genius' case was a good vehicle to test whether copyright law preempted state-law contract claims and recommended that the court deny Genius' petition to review the case.
The key issue was that Genius' terms of service may not be a valid contract because website visitors don't have to directly agree to the website's terms and may not even be aware they exist. Because of this, Prelogar said it was unclear whether any court would find that Google -- or any visitor to Genius' site -- ever agreed to not copy the lyrics. Reviewing Genius' arguments, Prelogar said that the Supreme Court should not review the case because "there is little indication that any other court of appeals would reach a different outcome in this case." A Google spokesperson told Ars that Google continues to dispute Genius' claims it copied song lyrics. "The Solicitor General and multiple courts continue to find that Genius' claims have no merit," Google's spokesperson told Ars. "We include lyrics in search results to help you quickly find what you are looking for. We license the lyrics text from third parties, and we do not crawl or scrape websites to source lyrics."
The key issue was that Genius' terms of service may not be a valid contract because website visitors don't have to directly agree to the website's terms and may not even be aware they exist. Because of this, Prelogar said it was unclear whether any court would find that Google -- or any visitor to Genius' site -- ever agreed to not copy the lyrics. Reviewing Genius' arguments, Prelogar said that the Supreme Court should not review the case because "there is little indication that any other court of appeals would reach a different outcome in this case." A Google spokesperson told Ars that Google continues to dispute Genius' claims it copied song lyrics. "The Solicitor General and multiple courts continue to find that Genius' claims have no merit," Google's spokesperson told Ars. "We include lyrics in search results to help you quickly find what you are looking for. We license the lyrics text from third parties, and we do not crawl or scrape websites to source lyrics."
AI training precedent? (Score:2)
Will/can this be used to fight claims that AI's used information not specifically "protected" by a EULA/TOS/"I agree" button?
So? (Score:1)
I also never said I wouldn't copy stuff off Piratebay yet if I did it, I'd be hit with the law.
Re: (Score:2)
Google claims to have a valid license to copy the lyrics.
Re: (Score:2)
Has anyone outside of Google seen said license? Sounds dubious to me - if it had such a license it wouldn't need to scrape websites for them.
But not by Pirate Bay (Score:2)
I also never said I wouldn't copy stuff off Piratebay yet if I did it, I'd be hit with the law.
But not sued by PirateBay.
Illegal downloading is breaking federal law (DMCA), while copyright infringement is a violation of civil law. Genius had to take Google to court, not report Google to the feds for enforcement.
Re: (Score:2)
Clearly the copyright holder could sue you in federal court.
The question is if Piratebay could also sue you in state court for breach of contract. The contentious law is Title 17 of (Federal) US Code Section 301 that seems to say the right to copy stuff is exclusively governed by federal law, and the individual States get no say in it, so therefore contracts (covered by state law) can't prevent you from copying things. This is disputed,
In this case Genius say a contract can stop Google from copying lyrics f
Re:LOL That's pure USA crap... (Score:5, Insightful)
Quote: "The key issue was that Genius' terms of service may not be a valid contract because website visitors don't have to directly agree to the website's terms and may not even be aware they exist."
LOL.
So... If I "visit" USA, where I don't have to directly agree to the country's terms (USA Laws are not signed acceptance by me when I fly over there) nor I do have to be aware they exist (many of those stupid laws that pop-up from time to time to laugh at USA).
Therefore, I don't have to comply with them... according to this woman (who, most probably, was paid a nice "support" money from Alphabet (not "Google"... you know) for her "standing work on law"...)
Contracts and laws are two different things. You understand the difference, right?
Re: (Score:2)
Quote: "Contracts and laws are two different things. You understand the difference, right?"
That you have to fulfill the contract just the same as the law, as long as the contract is not in direct violation of a law... You understand they are the same, right?
Re: (Score:2)
That you have to fulfill the contract just the same as the law
That's.... not how laws, nor contracts, work. At all. Holy moly.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you saying that law are NOT a "must comply with" and contracts are NOT a "must comply with (unless it violates a law"?
Are YOU sure about that? HOLY MOLY.
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Because this is contract law. That means the two parties agree to a contract. For copyright law, this can mean merely a disclosure in the book or jacket sleeve that the work is copyrighted, no one has to actually sign any contract unless they want to create further copies of the work. Even if this copyright page is ripped out of a book you still have to abide by it. The government won't arrest you if you make copies but the publisher or author could sue you.
In this particular instance possibly if t
Re: LOL That's pure USA crap... (Score:1)
Foolish suit by Genius (Score:2)
we do not crawl or scrape (Score:3)
Google:
Yeah, the 3rd parties do the scraping. A distancing measure, just like hiring contract cleaners because the worker abuse then isn't your fault.
Re:we do not crawl or scrape (Score:4, Interesting)
Google licenses lyrics from LyricFind. They are a clearinghouse that negotiates directly with labels and copyright holders for royalties. The song owner can submit lyrics and fans can as well. But they don't have the full text of lyrics for every song that can be licensed.
Meanwhile, Genius licenses directly with the publishers. And again, they don't get provided copies of lyrics for absolutely everything in the deal.
Since both have the rights they can both legally display the lyrics. If Google did scrape the lyrics from the site, it can't be a copyright violation. Even if Genius crowdsourced or transcribed the lyrics themselves, it is a derivative work of the original and tied to the original copyright. With maps, you can't copyright facts and so you can copy a 100% accurate map. Mapmakers might throw in little mistakes to prove that their work was copied and sue for infringement on that basis. Lyrics are not facts - they are already copyrighted.
This is ignoring the normal fair use argument for showing snippets of web sites as a preview. Showing an entire song's lyrics without licensing is probably not fair use, even though it is not a performance of the song and has very little value on its own. Genius already got sued for showing lyrics on their site before they were a licensee.
Re: (Score:2)
You're right that Genius certainly does NOT own copyright to the lyrics themselves. But (and IANAL) they could try the argument that their website/service is a DATABASE of song lyrics, and databases ARE protected under copyright law [michalsons.com].
The legal argument would be that Google has copied and redistributed part of their database without authorization. I don't know if it would hold up. But it's a much less stupid of an argument on the face of it.