Google accused by Genius for copying its lyrics data

Most often we rely on Google lyric’s results instead of using individual lyrics sites. If you think you are the only one doing that you are wrong. Genius has recently accused Google of copying its lyrics data. Not just that, but the company has also claimed that Google has hurt its website traffic. As stated by Genius, the evidence can be found in the apostrophes. The apostrophes are deliberately alternated between curved and straight lines to form a watermark. The watermark represents ‘red-handed’ in Morse code. Genius has found over 100s of Google’s lyrics that include the exact apostrophes.

Google, however, has clearly denied any such activity as stated to the Wall Street Journal. Google is one of those companies that takes copyright issues very seriously. As stated by LyricFind to the Wall Street Journal that their staff does not source lyrics from Genius. Both the companies Google and LyricFind have clearly denied any matches with the lyrics of Genius.

No formal actions are taken yet but Genius has still claimed that Google is violating both its terms or service and antitrust law. The company claims that they have alerted Google in 2007. If Genius tries to file a case, it may not get much success in it as they don’t own the lyrics. They are only allowed to display them on their platform.

Google in its statement to Engadget:

 “The lyrics displayed in the information boxes and in knowledge panels on Google search are licensed from a variety of sources and are not scraped from sites of the web. We take data quality and creator rights very seriously and hold our licensing partners accountable to the terms of our agreement. We’re investigating this issue with our data partners and if we find that partners are not upholding good practices we will end our agreements.”