
Lyrics Site Genius.com Accuses Google of Lifting Its Content - o10449366
https://www.wsj.com/articles/lyrics-site-genius-com-accuses-google-of-lifting-its-content-11560677400?mod=rsswn
======
crazygringo
> _Genius said it found more than 100 examples of songs on Google that came
> from its site._

> _In a statement, Google said the lyrics on its site, which pop up in little
> search-result squares called “information panels,” are licensed from
> partners, not created by Google... In 2016, Google partnered with LyricFind
> Inc., a Canadian company that secures deals with music publishers allowing
> companies such as Google to publish lyrics online._

So Google is _properly licensing_ lyrics from song publishers and uses a third
party to provide the lyrics, and somehow that third party wound up with more
than a "hundred" \-- not a million but a hundred -- that were copy-pasted from
Genius at some point.

Except for the apostrophes thing being clever, this sounds like a complete
non-issue? That Genius's issue is not with Google but the company they source
from... AND that they'd have to prove a wholesale systematic copying (closer
to millions of songs) as opposed to it being e.g. some rando employee who got
lazy and took a shortcut one week?

~~~
lettergram
> "hundred" \-- not a million but a hundred -- that were copy-pasted from
> Genius at some point.

To be fair, they can probably only confirm incorrect lyrics. Correct ones
would look the exact same. Presumably, the vast majority are correct

~~~
crazygringo
The article says it uses apostrophe fingerprinting... and a _lot_ of songs
have lots of apostrophes. Assuming just 4 apostrophes per song, there's only a
1/16 chance of it being an accidental match... but given that it's already
quite unlikely for _any_ text (including lyrics) to contain both types of
apostrophes, practically speaking it's probably closer to a 1/100 or 1/1000
chance of false positives.

They should be able to accurately confirm whether hundreds of _thousands_ of
songs were taken from Genius, without any difficulty.

~~~
zeven7
I'm surprised Google wasn't already normalizing apostrophes and other
punctuation anyway. I'm sure they will be now.

------
robk
These guys are notorious for having stolen lyrics from other sites for many
years and only licensing them after legal threats. Funny to see it all come
full circle.

~~~
giancarlostoro
That sounds odd to me that any site would own the copyright to lyrics. Wouldnt
that be the artist / record company's property?

The value add of Genius isnt so much in the lyrics but in the explanation and
context given grom Genius. I have even seen actual artists confirm
interpretations and explain some things as well I think Hittman from Dr. Dre's
2001 album was one such artist if I remember correctly.

I do see what you are saying on the other hand but I dont think that lyrics
written down from a song are some random websites copyright / property.

~~~
jjeaff
I think the main value they add is working to agreggate all the lyrics into
one site.

If Google is simply scraping that content from them without permission then
that has been litigated many times in court and almost always comes out badly
for the "scraper".

~~~
slg
The same issue also comes up a lot when dealing with data that can't be
copyrighted. For example stock quotes, sports statistics, and maps are all
statements of fact and therefore no one can copyright them. However you still
have to end up either gathering the information yourself or licensing it from
a data provider. Simply scraping it off someone else who has already done one
of those two is a quick way to get into legal trouble.

------
hornbaker
I wonder how many companies Google has wounded/killed with their search
infopanels. For example, yesterday I searched for “speedtest” expecting
Ookla’s speedtest.net to be the top result. Nope, now it’s a one-click speed
test offered by Google at the top. Great for users, devastating for the sites
at the top of the SERPs.

~~~
kpU8efre7r
If you search "Ookla speed test" or "speed test Ookla", then you get Ookla as
the top result without seeing Google's panel.

If you only search for "speed test", you get Google's panel followed by
Ookla's. I see nothing wrong with this, they are giving users what they want.

~~~
unreal37
Sure, they put themselves between users and content, and then they decided
they should serve the content too.

Amazon discovers the best selling third-party products on it's site, and then
makes it's own version of them too. Everybody is doing it.

Pretty soon, 5 companies will be serving up 99.9% of the content on the
Internet. Nothing wrong with that.

Nothing anyone here in startup land needs to worry about.

Right?

~~~
manfredo
When your search "calculator" are you angry that Google displays its own web
calculator before returning 3rd party results? These are simple utilities, and
I don't see why it's bad for Google to offer is own. In fact for web tests
it's more useful to me. Much of what I access is Google services, so testing
latency and throughput to their servers is better for me.

~~~
p49k
They aren't just doing it for simple utilities, they are literally trying to
create some kind of "box" above search results for every possible query,
subjective or objective. "Best movies of 2019", "What are the ingredients of
pancakes?", the name of any store, restaurant, location, etc.

~~~
cycrutchfield
And if they are producing results better than the blogspam that ends up in the
top result, how is that a bad thing?

~~~
p49k
They are stealing the (often wrong) answers from the blogspam and putting it
in their own box - how is that better? They should just filter out the
blogspam - that’s ostensibly what a search engine company should be investing
their time doing.

~~~
dazilcher
> They are stealing the (often wrong) answers from the blogspam and putting it
> in their own box - how is that better?

Saves a click and the ordeal of loading a gazillion quasi-malicious ads posing
as information. Much better in my book.

~~~
p49k
It’s slightly better to load the (often wrong) blogspam answers into a box
than to link to the blogspam, although in doing so, it gives the wrong answer
more authority. It’s much better to actually spend resources to filter
blogspam from results and link to quality sites which have done actual
research.

------
plotteddancer16
Mapmakers had a similar problem in the past, but the theft could be proven by
creating data (“trap streets”) that didn’t exist. Sounds like Genius has been
employing similar mechanisms and needs to proceed with legal remedies

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trap_street)

~~~
dpflan
That is an interesting idea.

From the article in this post:

"When the two types of apostrophes were converted to the dots and dashes used
in Morse code, they spelled out the words 'Red Handed.'"

I'm aware of the history of Genius (formerly Rap Genius) so I found the
translation of the code to be entertaining and mildly ironic.

------
yvoschaap
I caught Google a few years back with the same hijack, but then it was
Metrolyrics:
[https://yvoschaap.com/weblog/misbehavior_by_google_lyrics_on...](https://yvoschaap.com/weblog/misbehavior_by_google_lyrics_onebox_result)

------
tarr11
Related to their previous battles with Google ("We're sorry for being such
morons")

[https://genius.com/Genius-founders-rap-genius-is-back-on-
goo...](https://genius.com/Genius-founders-rap-genius-is-back-on-google-
annotated)

~~~
walshemj
Sounds like they haven't learnt their lesson and/or have an incompetent SEO
director

------
appstorelottery
Years ago I had one of the top Coin Tossing Apps on iOS. Google changed all
that by answering a coin-toss search with an actual coin-toss. My mind was
blown that I was actually competing with Google at that point...

~~~
ryan_j_naughton
What Google search will give you such results?

~~~
CydeWeys
[https://www.google.com/search?q=flip+a+coin](https://www.google.com/search?q=flip+a+coin)

------
vemv
'Its' content? Don't the lyrics belong to their actual authors?

~~~
ceejayoz
I suspect it's a bit like recipes.

Taking someone else's list of ingredients and steps and putting them in your
own words is legal. Taking the recipe verbatim isn't.

~~~
bdcravens
Lyrics that aren't verbatim aren't lyrics.

~~~
ceejayoz
Missing the point.

Transcribing the lyrics yourself is kinda like writing the list of ingredients
- it's a statement of fact. "The lyrics of this song are X."

Copying that effort from someone else, alternating apostrophes and all, is a
bit different. In most cases, you can't prove that's what happened, but it's
quite clear here.

~~~
cameronbrown
You'd have a hard time proving that though. It's incredibly easy for all the
grammar to end up the same.

~~~
ceejayoz
Normally, yes.

When the apostrophes spell out "red handed" in Morse code, though...

------
CPLX
Both of these guys suck.

These lyrics are the intellectual property of the people who actually wrote
them.

~~~
vorpalhex
Genius also offers significant lyric annotation and crowd sources unpublished
lyrics - that I imagine is what they are protective about.

~~~
CPLX
I bet it’s not.

Nobody is accusing Google of copying the annotations, just the lyrics.

Genius didn’t write them, and they didn’t even transcribe them as you point
out.

I’m no Google fan in the context of ripping off competitors but Genius has a
pretty shady history as well and it’s pretty hard to have sympathy for either
of them.

~~~
giancarlostoro
The lyrics are user submitted so sometimes a user already transcribed them on
one site and ports them over. Other times its just illogical to think some
lyrics site owns copyrights to the transcription of a song. Now only one
single site can have it perfectly transcribed and everyone else has to shift
words around in order to make it a unique work worth copyrighting? What.

------
exogeny
>The company doesn’t disclose revenues but says its ad business runs to tens
of millions of dollars per year.

I am extremely skeptical of this claim.

------
amaccuish
The wikipedia info panels are particulary annoying, it seems pretty hard to
find that actual link to the wiki article and I think they remove the wiki
article from the main search results since it's now at the side.

------
vonseel
I have noticed the opposite, that Googles lyrics are usually inaccurate and I
assumed they were lifted from alternative sources than Genius. Just my
experience, though.

~~~
wmil
It probably isn't Google though. They say they license and receive content
from LyricFind Inc, which probably takes care of all the legal issues.

I'm guess that LyricFind got lawyers from all the major labels to sign
licenses, but no one ever actually bothered to get the lyrics for them.
Management probably told their tech people to just get them from wherever.

------
p1necone
This seems pretty inane to me. Rightsholder licenses lyrics to both Genius and
Google, Google copies lyric text from Genius. Seems like Genius shouldn't have
a leg to stand on? (And even if they were _technically_ right, they're wasting
courts time and not actually achieving anything useful).

------
wyqydsyq
How is Genius.com in a position to make any claims on "its content" when said
content is entirely the copyrighted works of various artists?

Just because the lyrics may be entered by users has no bearing on the fact
that the lyrics are copyrighted works and that Genius.com doesn't own or have
any rights to them. Just like doing a cover of another band's song doesn't
mean you now own the song, reproducing and distributing a song's lyrics
doesn't mean you now own the lyrics.

------
nikanj
Next:

1) Google will apologize and remove genius.com from results 2) Traffic at
genius will plummet 3) Genius will beg for mercy, and give Google full rights
to all material

~~~
dewey
That already happened once a couple of years ago for their blog spam SEO hack.

------
asatterfield54
1\. SELECT * FROM adsense_payouts ORDER BY amount DESC. If no results, SELECT
* FROM search_results ORDER BY clicks DESC.

2\. If y > x, where x = ((purchase price of company from #1) / 3) and y =
(amount of payout) or y = (clicks * 1000) in #1

3\. Clone MVP, remove company from adsense_payouts and search_results

------
yawz
LyricFind Offers Corrections to Inaccuracies in Wall Street Journal Reporting
[https://lyricfind.com/index.php?id=316](https://lyricfind.com/index.php?id=316)

------
paulpauper
You mean the content created and owned by the actual song writers or labels.

------
Grue3
Anecdotal, but I was looking up lyrics for a song, and AZLyrics and Genius had
slightly different lyrics. Google used AZLyrics version.

~~~
dwringer
My experience has been the same, not once but many times. Often I consider the
lyrics on Genius to be more accurate, to the point where I am in the habit of
bypassing whatever Google tells me the lyrics are and searching directly for
the former.

------
icebraining
Frankly, what do they expect to gain here? A few thousands bucks? Even if
Google is getting the lyrics from their site, it's not like they're
irreplaceable. Seems like grasping at straws, and if I was an investor, I'd be
worried.

------
charlesism
“It’s not fair! We stole these lyrics first”

------
faissaloo
And I ask 'so what?'

------
o10449366
Paywall link: [https://www.wsj.com/articles/lyrics-site-genius-com-
accuses-...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/lyrics-site-genius-com-accuses-
google-of-lifting-its-content-11560677400?mod=rsswn)

------
walshemj
IF this is about position 0 results Google allows you to opt out as they say
here
[https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6229325?hl=en](https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6229325?hl=en)

"You can opt out of featured snippets by preventing snippets on your page
using the <meta name="googlebot" content="nosnippet"> tag on your page. This
will remove all snippets on your page, including those in regular search
results."

The WSJ also comments that rap genius does not have rights here - full
disclosure I am an investor in Hipgnosis (SONG) - I trust Rap genius are
paying them correctly.

~~~
ceejayoz
The snippets aren't coming (directly) from Genius, though.

> In a statement, Google said the lyrics on its site, which pop up in little
> search-result squares called “information panels,” are licensed from
> partners, not created by Google.

> In 2016, Google partnered with LyricFind Inc., a Canadian company that
> secures deals with music publishers allowing companies such as Google to
> publish lyrics online.

The meta tag would have no effect. One of Google's vendors is stealing from
Genius, not Google directly.

~~~
walshemj
Interesting so why are rap genius not suing them?

And have never heard of google licencing position 0 snippets before. And in
the UK I see the actual song writers and publishers credited which is sort of
what I would expect

~~~
applecrazy
Citing a much smaller company means there's probably no media exposure. This
move is as much as a PR stunt as it is an actual legal claim.

