Dumbest 'Gotcha' Story Of The Week: Google, Genius And The Copying Of Licensed Lyrics
from the red-handed...-at-what? dept
You may have seen this story in various forms over the weekend, starting with a big Wall Street Journal article (paywall likely) claiming that Genius caught Google "red handed" in copying lyrics from its site. Lots of other articles on the story use the term "red handed" in the title, and you'll understand why in a moment. However, there's a lot of background to go over here -- and while many Google haters are making a big deal out of this news, after going through the details, it seems like (mostly) a completely over-hyped, ridiculous story.
First, a little background: for pretty much the entire existence of this site, we've written about legal disputes concerning lyrics sites -- going all the way back to a story in 2000 about LyricFind (remember that name?) preemptively shutting itself down to try to work out "licensing" deals for the copyright on lyrics. Over the years, publishers have routinely freaked out and demanded money from lyrics sites. As we've pointed out over and over again, it was never clear how this made any sense at all -- especially on crowd sourced lyrics sites. It's not as though lyrics sites are taking away from the sales of the music -- if anything, they're the kinds of thing that connects people more deeply to the music and would help improve other aspects of the music business ecosystem.
Over time, however, more and more sites realized that it was just easier to pay up than fight it out in court. One of those sites was Genius -- originally "RapGenius" -- which was called out by the National Music Publisher's Association as one of the "worst" infringers out there a few years back. Genius eventually caved in and agreed to license lyrics, despite incredibly strong fair use claims (since the whole point of Genius was to allow for annotation and commentary).
However, in this latest case, it's now Genius that's complaining about someone else copying its content. Except... it's not Genius' content. This is what makes the story bizarre -- which we'll get to in a moment. However, first, it is worth highlighting the somewhat fun way in which Genius apparently "caught" Google using content from the Genius site as its source material. Basically, Genius hid a code in whether it used "straight" apostrophes or curly "smart" apostrophes:
Starting around 2016, Genius said, the company 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.”
The WSJ shows the following example from a snippet of lyrics from the Alessia Cara song "Not Today."
So, this secret bit of encoding is kinda clever (as is the use of Morse code and the message it spells out). But, despite everyone freaking out over this, there's a pretty big question? Does this even matter? And while CBS stupidly and incorrectly claims that Genius is suing Google over this, there's no indication of any actual lawsuit yet, and it's not clear what they could actually sue over.
First off, despite the headline accusations against Google, Google (1) licenses lyrics itself, and (2) gets them from LyricFind (remember them?) with whom it signed a big deal a few years back. This raises a few different issues.
First, as law professor Annemarie Briday noted, since both Genius and Google license the lyrics, it doesn't really matter where they're sourced from, as regards to copyright law:
Interesting competition/vertical integration issues here (@HalSinger), but no © issues. If the reproduced lyrics are licensed, the actual source doesn’t matter. What am I missing? https://t.co/kGhQX37HIz
— Annemarie Bridy (@AnnemarieBridy) June 16, 2019
Indeed, in many ways, the situation reminds me of an important Supreme Court ruling from 1991 in Feist v. Rural Telephone Services. In that case, you had a telephone company that inserted fictitious residents and phone numbers into its phone books to catch anyone copying straight from its own directory. And, indeed, it caught Feist ("red handed") copying directly from its phone books, by finding the fictitious entries in Feist's directory. However, as the Supreme Court noted, there was no copyright interest in phone numbers, which were factual information. This was the case that explicitly rejected the "sweat of the brow" theory of copyright, saying that you only get copyright in new creative works.
This situation is not identical, because there is clearly a copyright interest in the lyrics, but since both parties (actually, all three parties, if we include LyricFind) have properly licensed the works, then we're in the same basic legal framework. Anyone who is allowed to post these lyrics can and should be able to get them from anywhere.
The second reason why this story is likely all hype and no substance is the role of LyricFind. Google basically said "hey, we just get stuff from our partners, and don't scrape, so if there's a problem... it's from our partners." From the WSJ:
In a written 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.
“We take data quality and creator rights very seriously and hold our licensing partners accountable to the terms of our agreement,” Google said.
After this article was published online Sunday, Google issued a second statement to say it was investigating the issue raised by Genius and would terminate its agreements with partners who were “not upholding good practices.”
LyricFind separately denied copying from Genius, but that seems like a more likely culprit. In its own blog post, LyricFind says that it supplied the lyrics for Google, but denies copying from Genius, and says that the WSJ got a bunch of facts wrong:
The lyrics in question were provided to Google by LyricFind, as was confirmed to WSJ prior to publication. Google licenses lyrics content from music publishers (the rightful owner of the lyrics) and from LyricFind. To accuse them of any wrongdoing is extremely misleading.
LyricFind invests heavily in a global content team to build its database. That content team will often start their process with a copy of the lyric from numerous sources (including direct from artists, publishers, and songwriters), and then proceed to stream, correct, and synchronize that data. Most content our team starts with requires significant corrections before it goes live in our database.
Some time ago, Ben Gross from Genius notified LyricFind that they believed they were seeing Genius lyrics in LyricFind’s database. As a courtesy to Genius, our content team was instructed not to consult Genius as a source. Recently, Genius raised the issue again and provided a few examples. All of those examples were also available on many other lyric sites and services, raising the possibility that our team unknowingly sourced Genius lyrics from another location.
As a result, LyricFind offered to remove any lyrics Genius felt had originated from them, even though we did not source them from Genius’ site. Genius declined to respond to that offer. Despite that, our team is currently investigating the content in our database and removing any lyrics that seem to have originated from Genius.
The company also pointed out that Genius has only identified approximately 100 songs that were copied, and it has 1.5 million in its database, suggesting that it's not in the business of regularly copying from Genius. But, again, it's not clear why it would really matter that much either way, since everyone is licensed.
To put it another way: Genius' license to the lyrics does not grant it any other rights beyond being able to display those lyrics itself. It has no exclusivity. It doesn't hold the copyright. And, no, changing a few apostrophes is unlikely to meet the creative bar to get a new derivative copyright. So, there's no additional right that Genius has to stop another licensee from using its version of the lyrics.
There's a separate issue here worth noting as well: all of this demonstrates just how idiotic the whole "licensing of lyrics" business is -- considering that what everyone here is admitting is that even when they license lyrics, they're making it up much of the time. Specifically, what people are noting is that they license lyrics from the publishers, but the publishers themselves rarely even have or know the lyrics they're licensing, so lyrics sites try to figure them out themselves and "create" the lyrics file which may or may not be accurate. Indeed, the WSJ reports that this is why Genius first became suspicious of Google -- because on one particularly difficult to understand track, it had reached out to the musician directly for the lyrics, and then was surprised to see the same version on Google.
But... if the publishers don't even know they lyrics they're licensing, then what the fuck are they licensing in the first place? The right to try to decipher the lyrics that they supposedly hold a copyright on? Really?
One music guy suggested that a different "source" of the "problem" (if you do consider it a problem), is that since the publishers have no idea what the lyrics are anyway, THEY might be sourcing the lyrics themselves from Genius and then passing them along to Genius.
In short, the whole lyrics/copyright space remains a clusterfuck. But it's difficult to see how it's at all Google's fault.
Some people have raised a few other possible legal arguments that have at least somewhat more merit than any copyright claim, but still strike me as incredibly weak. First, there's the argument that this kind of scraping violates Genius' terms of service. Of course, that opens a Pandora's box of how enforceable click through terms of service actually are (though, many courts have found them binding). But then it will matter quite a bit as to whether or not it was actually Google, LyricFind or someone else who copied the content from Genius. And, given everything discussed above, tracking that down seems almost impossible -- and given the low number of "copied" lyrics found, it certainly doesn't appear to be a major automated scraping situation.
The other possibility that a few people have suggested, is that there are competition/antitrust arguments to be made against Google here. That argument boils down to Google using its size and position to abuse that position to harm the competitor Genius. And... maybe? There was a similar complaint a few years ago about Google apparently sinking a site that tried to estimate the "net worth" of celebrities, by posting that info in a Google "answer box" and not having people click through to the celebrity site.
But that argument also strikes me as incredibly weak for multiple reasons. First, if Google putting the info from your site in an answer box destroys all your traffic and your business, then, um, you didn't have very much of a business in the first place, and it's not clear that your site really adds that much value. At the very least, it suggests that your business is not that defensible. In the case of Genius, the site has long insisted that its real value was in the annotations, not just the lyrics. But now it's complaining that showing just the lyrics (which tons of other sites also have) is somehow removing traffic? That's... weak. Second, going by consumer benefit alone, Google has a pretty strong argument that displaying this information (and again, with lyrics, it's all properly licensed) is a lot better for the users than shunting them off to a third party site. And, third, as evidence above, it doesn't appear that Google actually did anything here at all. Other than properly licensing lyrics via LyricFind. It's very difficult to see how there's any antitrust issue with that.
In the end, this is an interesting story -- especially in highlighting how Google was "caught" -- but it's hard to see what the actual legal problem is here. There are plenty of reasons to be concerned about Google, but the fact that its properly licensed lyrics matches someone else's properly licensed lyrics, doesn't seem like one of them.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: antitrust, competition, copyright, licensing, lyrics, scraping, terms of service
Companies: genius, google, lyricfind
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
Everything Must Be Owned
In a world where everything must be owned, I daresay Genius will be using its apostrophe type choices to spell out "Red Handed" as the copyrighted item.
Butter the popcorn, people, this should be fun!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Side Question: Aren't Lyrics Poems?
My only question here is why shouldn't lyric sites be licensed? I get that they aren't directly competing with the music, but at the end of the day, lyrics do meet the bar of creative expression. Just because they are read vs. listened to doesn't change that fact.
The fair use claim of transformative, I can understand, but doubt it would hold up. If people commenting and annotating song lyrics might be informational, but you could argue the same thing of an entire book. I don't think that many authors would appreciate their entire book being posted online for free under the guise of "but annotations!".
Keep in mind I think that these sites have value outside of the song themselves. I understand that they do not compete, but you do this to poems, you'd have problems as well I would surmise.
Just something to discuss.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Side Question: Aren't Lyrics Poems?
The point there is, why would one not even get absolutely official kyrics if one is licensing them? That's a problem. The reason there are so many "figure out the lyrics" sites is that... there are no official published lyrics to be found.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Side Question: Aren't Lyrics Poems?
Lyrics have only occasionally been treated as poetry in their own right. Usually with a book, the text is the only important part; a copy of the text can substitute for a book.
Consider the standard fair-use factors for lyrics without music:
1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes — they're meant to help people understand an original work, not replace it; usually it's a non-profit use
2) the nature of the copyrighted work — meant to accompany music and considered incomplete on their own
3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole — see point 2
4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work — near zero; who's ever read the words to a song and decided it's pointless to hear the thing now?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Side Question: Aren't Lyrics Poems?
On number 4 I can say yes this will happen, not enough to tip the scales of deprofiting a song but enough that people could find it useful.
Remember the FBI and citizens trying to find out what lyrics were said in the song Louie Louie, by the kingsmen? People thought thw song had bad lyrics and stuff so it should be banned. Had they just seen lyrics they would have been fine with tbe song.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Side Question: Aren't Lyrics Poems?
Come on now. Either the work is the whole song or the work is the lyrics; you can't change which it is in the middle of the analysis just to get a more favorable result.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Side Question: Aren't Lyrics Poems?
Lyrics go hand in hand with musical scores, and copyright enforcement goes way back.
"Happy Birthday to you!
If you sing this, we'll sue!
Because we own the copyright to
Happy Birthday to you!"
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Side Question: Aren't Lyrics Poems?
Not anywhere near how it happens you can sing The happy Birthday song all day. its amazing how dumb people are and what they believe just because some other idiot said it
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Side Question: Aren't Lyrics Poems?
Idiot alert!
Until just a few years ago you could get sued for singing it to your customers in a restaurant.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Side Question: Aren't Lyrics Poems?
Copyright fanboys always have had a thing for flipping back and forth.
Copyright infringement and suing about is serious business... until people pointed out that copyright owners were assholes for suing about singing Happy Birthday, so the fans insisted that "private performances" wouldn't be sued. Except that the line between "public" versus "private" performances has been constantly blurred.
There's also the fact that Warner was found to have pocketed millions from the supposedly non-lucrative copyright on the song that was never revealed until lawyers decided to dig a little.
It's almost like copyright enforcement is dependent on whether a venture is lucrative as opposed to, you know... actually following the law. I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Side Question: Aren't Lyrics Poems?
Documented factual information is a problem to you now, or is it just that you have to ignore history and context in order to say things?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Oh the irony - We have copied the song writes lyrics, so how dare somebody do the same to us.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Blinded by the light, rammed up like a docent in the humble of the might.
I have seen the same badly incorrect lyrics at every lyrics site. Who scrapes who, or who cross-posts everywhere? This stuff is nearly all UGC, so idk where Genius gets off whining about anything.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
At least that’s a fairly cleaner mondegreen than the one I’m used to hearing in my head. 😆
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
...
To be fair, some sites will alter the lyrics if there is a cuss-word or any inappropriate hint within the lyrics to make their site more appropriate for kids. They don’t want little kids to be exposed to sheer violence hidden within a song whose lyrics show indications of violence.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
How's the grieving for Hansmeier coming along, Herrick?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
there's a bathroom on the right
Who owns the copyright upon mis-heard lyrics?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: there's a bathroom on the right
All the lonely Starbucks lovers.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: there's a bathroom on the right
But how does Copyright even relate to “There’s a Bathroom On The Right”
Unless someone put laxatives in the Starbucks coffee.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: there's a bathroom on the right
Who owns the copyright upon mis-heard lyrics?
Re: there's a bathroom on the right
All the lonely Starbucks lovers.
I had some theories but they were just clowns in my coffee...excuse me while I kiss this guy and then I'll be back with more of an answer.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: there's a bathroom on the right
Paper plates: they're all in your mind.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: who owns "there's a bathroom on the right"?
Bob Rivers.
Definitely.
I read all about it the last time I went to the loo.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So... Google legally licences lyrics and they get blamed anyway even though they're 100% following the law? Sounds about right, and that both handily illustrates why they're no longer bending backwards to accommodate the record labels. It's also hard to see what this long-running attack on indexing sites actually does except make it harder for people to find that song they kind of remember half a line from the chorus of.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
That is it, I am creating a bad lyrics site where only wrong lyrics that sound right can be posted.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
What better way to do that then to have Google Translate translate the lyrics first.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
'Scuse me while I kiss this guy.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
GOOGLE always appears innocent in pieces chosen for the purpose.
Neatly circular re-inforcing: Masnick only runs pieces in which GOOGLE is arguably innocent, and GOOGLE chooses to "sponsor" Masnick for that very trait.
Masnick ignores GOOGLE news if looks bad. Period.
Here's a sample of the much larger areas he's currently ignoring:
REVEALED: Two More Google Blacklists Designed To Remove `Fringe Domains' And Op-Eds From Special Search Results
https://dailycaller.com/2019/06/11/revealed-two-google-blacklists-fringe-domains-special-se arch-results/
GOOGLE giving Beto special ad placement...
https://qz.com/1641096/googles-systems-didnt-see-beto-orourkes-ads-as-political/
GOOGLE : YOUTUBE too big to fix...
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/17/google-ceo-sundar-pichai-youtube-is-too-big-to-fix.html
Tech giants head down 'dangerous' censorship path
https://thehill.com/opinion/technology/448820-tech-giants-head-down-dangerous-censors hip-path
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: GOOGLE always appears innocent in pieces chosen for the purp
At the top of the page is a search box, type Google into it and hit search, and you will be given a list of stories from Techdirt, some defending them and some criticising them. Doing as suggested would be a good idea before shooting your mouth off.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: TROLL always appears
At the top of the page is a search box, type Google into it and hit search, and you will be given a list of stories from Techdirt
Blue can't type Google - that would taint the purity of his neo-nazi incel beliefs.
Seriously if he thinks he can do such a better job than TD (or Google) maybe he needs to step up and do something other than sit in his parents basement and scream at all the people oppressing him?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: TROLL always appears
Amusingly, on an entirely different forum, I myself am known as TD (an abbreviation of my handle on that forum).
The trained response triggers every time I see those initials. TechDirt comment sections can get interesting for me.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: TROLL always appears
So you are no better than Pavlov's dogs then?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: TROLL always appears
None of us are. If you're unable to build pattern recognition memory with autonomic response you must be absolutely terrible at anything that requires dexterity or agility.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: TROLL always appears
A well trained memory filters out irrelevant signals, rather than reacting to every one.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: TROLL always appears
Most of the time, no. You don’t even notice it. But if your “well trained memory” is being wasted on lame insults in a forum, maybe you should go cure cancer, or fall off a cliff instead.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: TROLL always appears
I'm going to be charitable an assume someone was having a bad day. Still, it's interesting that the assumption would be that the trained response is anything more than "recognition" - and that it is not immediately followed by "wait, no, that means TechDirt, not me."
Makes me wonder what his/her/their experience with trained responses are. A little less self-control than the average is suggested by the assumption.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: GOOGLE always appears innocent in pieces chosen for the purp
It's weird... Whenever you're desperate to deflect and change the story, you manage to stumble across actual news sources rather than whatever random blog you come across first (although you still haven't worked out the difference between opinion pages and factual reporting).
Do you curate these links in preparation, or do you accidentally type real search terms rather than dog whistle phrases?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
“Google made a move that really fucked over a ton of people who rely on anti-censorship tools. For years, various anti-censorship tools from Tor to GreatFire to Signal have made use of ‘domain fronting.’ … In short, because most countries are reluctant to block all of Google, the ability to use Google for domain fronting was incredibly useful in getting around censorship. And now it's gone. Google claims that it never officially supported it, that this was a result of a planned update, and it has no intention of bringing it back[.] … Google doesn't need to support domain fronting, and there are reasonable business reasons for not doing so. But... there are also strong human rights reasons why the company should reconsider. In the past, Google has taken principled stands on human rights. This is another time that it should seriously consider doing so.”
Advice for the future, Blue Balls: Try to avoid making an absolutist statement where a single example can (and will) prove you wrong. You’ll save yourself a lot of embarassment that way.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
He is incapable of embarrassment. It's a common trait of sociopaths.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: GOOGLE always appears innocent in pieces chosen for the purp
Have you heard of this thing called the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States? Google manually de-listing sites from their search engine results is their right. The only thing manually editing the list matters is for Section 230 liability, which only matters as to the immunization against legal causes-of-action, but there is no legal right to have your site listed by the search engine of a private company, so that is irrelevant.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: GOOGLE always appears innocent in pieces chosen for the purp
The hilarious thing about the links above, is that the CNBC link, which you insist I refuse to cover, is Sundar Pichai simply saying exactly what I've been saying for years: which is that it's impossible to do content moderatin well at scale, and which you've been screaming about on this very site for years.
So now that he admits what I've been arguing... you're saying I won't report on that?
Come on, dude.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Can Genius Change Songs Like That?
So Genius is openly admitting that it is changing the text of copyrighted material. Even though it is a small and subtle change, they are making changes to the lyrics and then publishing the changes. Does copyright allow for those kinds of changes to be made without permission from the copyright owner?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Can Genius Change Songs Like That?
Are they, though?
If they changed all of the apostrophes from straight single quotes to angled single quotes, that would be regarded as a formatting change, not a change to the text itself. Similarly, replacing all angled quotes with straight quotes would also be regarded as a formatting change.
This is an inconsistent use of apostrophes, rather than either of the above, but it's the same kind of formatting change, rather than a change to the text.
As another example (assuming American style guidelines): If you quote someone who has quoted someone else, the inner quote uses single quotation marks within the outer, double quotation marks, even though the original that you're quoting would have double quotes around the inner quote.
Would you consider that to be a change to a copyrighted text?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Can Genius Change Songs Like That?
I do no know what to think of it. I am largely ignorant of these kinds of details. They are encoding information and changing the appearance so it seems like more than just formatting. I personally do not think that it should be subject to copyright restrictions, but my views have been wildly different than the media companies that retain these copyrights.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Can Genius Change Songs Like That?
In my opinion, the best test is to check if it changes the meaning. Changing punctuation etc. can be a simple formatting change, but if it changes the actual meaning of the text, then it's not just simple formatting change.
Altering the style of apostrophe used doesn't alter the meaning of the lyrics. Altering the font lyrics are displayed in generally doesn't alter the meaning of the lyrics. Etc.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Google's abhorrent behavior is really keeping Masnick busy these days, isn't it? lol
Need these articles though, for the "results" when people search for news on the subject.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Censorship test.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
This site was "moderating" (censoring) me for the past three days.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
So go somewhere else and complain. Techdirt can’t stop you from doing that. And you can’t force Techdirt to host your speech. Deal with it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
No it wasn't.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You earned my click on the "flag this post as abusive/trolling/spam" button.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Looks to me the test was successful. Everyone can go home now.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I'm guessing that they're claiming infringement of their derivative work.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Please explain how changing the "style" of an apostrophe qualifies as derivative work?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Copyright - Finding new ways for people even further down the pyramid to make cash by suing other people.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
The law disagrees with you, Mr. C***
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
You're saying that companies don't make money by suing other people for copyright infringement then? Or that the law prohibits them from making money in that manner?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Always cryin Jhon
Poor baby. That Prenda sentence and the Supreme Court case musta really hit you hard bro.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Google has plenty of money, so it must be Google's fault. Google can also be blamed for events that have no possible causal connection to Google, such as ills that occurred before Google was founded.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Here's a thought experiment
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Here's a thought experiment
Except nobody except the artist and their publishing studio owns the rights to the song lyrics and there is no law that says it's copyright violation/infringement to post said lyrics on the internet for people who can't make them out in the song.
Then you didn't read the article.
As stated in the article, Google DIDN'T get the lyrics from Genius and they DIDN'T try to pass it off as their own. They got it from LyricFind through their contract/licensing agreement and properly attributed the lyrics to the artist who wrote/recorded the song. That means that if Google displayed Genius' "copyrighted" lyrics, it wasn't Google's fault, it was LyricFind's fault for giving them to Google in the first place. Because, once again, Google didn't go out and get them from Genius.
And also as noted, there is no copyright protection for Genius because they are just re-posting the exact same lyrics from someone else who holds the copyright. Not to mention that the apostrophe changes are unnoticeable by 99.9999999999999% of the people who would be looking at them.
The other problem with your analogy is that covering a song, or remixing it, is not the same as reproducing text. Every artist that covers or remixes a song is going to perform it a little differently. The lyrics are just text. There is no way to change the text and have it still be the same song. Different styles of apostrophes are just a formatting difference and could come down to what text editor they happened to use. The fact that Genius creatively used them as a type of DRM doesn't change the fact that they have ZERO right to a copyright claim on someone else copying and pasting them. I could copy their lyrics database, remove all the apostrophes and they would never know I copied all their lyrics database because it would look exactly the same as everyone else posting song lyrics.
And all of this is completely moot because as I stated above THERE IS NO LAW OR RULE THAT SAYS YOU CAN'T MAKE A DATABASE OF USER GENERATED SONG LYRICS AND PUT IT ON THE INTERNET.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Here's a thought experiment
Context matters.
Dylan created a song. He wrote the lyrics and performed the song. Hendrix licensed the song and created his own cover, and Hendrix's addition is not the lyrics but rather his unique performance.
In this case, we're only dealing with the lyrics. This is not a performative work. This is just a reporting of what the lyrics are of a song written by someone else.
For accuracy, try the following:
Dylan writes the song. Hendrix covers it. For neither version is an official lyrics page available.
Somebody on the internet puts up the lyrics they think are correct. A whole bunch of people do, each, supposedly, licensing the ability to display lyrics. One guy adds commentary, and changes the way apostrophes are displayed. We'll call him Genie.
What's the actual new stuff here? Note that Hendrix, when he covered the song, added his performative spin. His playing of the instrument, his method of singing, his voice, etc. He didn't change the lyrics. The lyrics are still all Dylan. He added his performance to the lyrics.
In our case, Genie has added commentary, and has changed the apostrophe format. The only actual new content is the commentary.
Now, if some other person who has licensed the lyrics comes along and grabs the lyrics from Genie's page, but leaves the commentary alone ... well, they've not actually taken anything that Genie owned. The lyrics aren't his. The apostrophe reformat isn't transformative. He didn't create anything that was copied.
To fit the analogy you provided, Google would have needed to also take all the commentary listed on Genius and present it as their own.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Here's a thought experiment
It's like complaining about popular historical or literary quotes if one didn't find the true original source to read (or listen to) before quoting them. (Never mind this would be hilariously impossible much of the time.)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Here's a thought experiment
“Google took someone else work and passed it off as their own.“
According to which part of the article? All I see is Google paying for a licence then returning it according to search queries
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Genius own copyright violations
Screenscraping and reproducing lyrics from Genius might be a violation of sui generis database right in EU but it's hard to see how Genius can claim any copyright for themselves on such a collection. (I hope they're not claiming that punctuation and other minimal editing generates a new copyright.)
More importantly, however, Genius itself is a serial copyright violator: their pages are full of descriptions copied verbatim from English Wikipedia articles without mentioning the source nor the CC-BY-SA license, let alone the authors, and no link whatsoever.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Genius own copyright violations
I hope they're not claiming that punctuation and other minimal editing generates a new copyright.
You'd be surprised. The hilarity about copyright law is that it gets applied to anything and everything. "Sweat of the brow", even minimal effort, is not too low a standard for copyright enforcers and advocates to dive.
Genius itself is a serial copyright violator
This is usually the case for anyone screaming "copyright!", partially due to how easy it is to infringe on even trace elements of someone else's work - but more egregiously is how often the RIAA et al just happen to use a photographer's image for their "IP law is teh shizzle fo' nizzle" materials without proper attribution or payment.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
I'm guessing that they're claiming infringement of their derivative work.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Does artwork make a difference?
Someone help me think through this, please.
Suppose I am an artist and I want to paint a portrait of an urban wall covered in graffiti. I acquire all of the licenses and permission from the original arrist who drew the graffiti, and then paint my own picture. Am I correct in assuming that I have copyright to my painting, which gives me the right to restrict who else may make a copy of my painting?
If I am correct, doesn't Genius have a cooyright to the particular “display” of the lyrics they have posted? Looking at the comparative examples given of the lyrics from the Google site and the Genius site they seem to use the same face type, spacing, font size, and even the same apostrophe style.
It seems to me that any copyright infringement is not of the lyrics, but of the “display” of the lyrics.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
"...telephone company that inserted fictitious residents and phone numbers into its phone books...
However, as the Supreme Court noted, there was no copyright interest in phone numbers, which were factual information. This was the case that explicitly rejected the "sweat of the brow" theory of copyright, saying that you only get copyright in new creative works."
Made up Ph. #'s are factual information? It is a fact that I can't ever get someone to complain to about lousy drivers @ 1-800-eat-shit
Residents. Whether they are referring to peoples names they created or new streets they created, seems a shame they didn't get copyright on their new creations
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Residents. Whether they are referring to fictitious peoples names they created or fictitious new streets they created, seems a shame they didn't get copyright on their new creations
[ link to this | view in chronology ]