3 ms·

Both of these guys suck. These lyrics are the intellectual property of the people who actually wrote them.

by CPLX 7y ago

emilfihlman 7y ago
So lets say I know the lyrics to a song that I don't own and the song is new. Do you reckon I can't write those lyrics down and teach them to someone because they "are" someone's intellectual property?
- b_tterc_p 7y ago
  I believe he's saying you can't accuse an unrelated third party of stealing the lyrics from you, because you don't own them in the first place.
  - giancarlostoro 7y ago
    This is what baffles me the most. However if you are directly fetching them from someones servers you should at least provide attribution if you are wasting their resources.
    - p49k 7y ago
      You should provide more than that. It’s not just server resources but data entry and proofing and whatever else goes into making their product. Genius pays royalties for using the lyrics - I don’t see why the fact that they don’t belong to Genius is relevant. If Amazon licenses a TV show that Netflix also licensed, it doesn’t give them the right to copy Netflix’s UI, descriptions, transcoded/edited video streams, etc.
vorpalhex 7y ago
Genius also offers significant lyric annotation and crowd sources unpublished lyrics - that I imagine is what they are protective about.
- CPLX 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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.
- jp57 7y ago
  Crowdsourcing unpublished lyrics without permission is copyright infringement against the copyright owner of the lyrics--usually the songwriter or their publishing company. One of the rights conferred by copyright is the right to not publish.
p49k 7y ago
Genius pays royalties for using the lyrics - if their own site is to believed (and why wouldn’t it?) they’ve struck deals with every major music publisher to license display of lyrics. I don't see how that's relevant to Google taking the rest of Genius's work (data entry/proofing/etc).
- JeremyBanks 7y ago
  They're obviously lying, yes. Maybe they do that now, but users used to at least to be able to add lyrics for any artist and song they wanted. There wasn't a license waiting period or anything before they went up.
drngdds 7y ago
It's hard for me to imagine that the world would actually be a better place if you couldn't post the lyrics to a song without paying the rights holders or getting sued.

Both of these guys suck. These lyrics are the intellectual property of the people who actually wrote them.

by CPLX 7y ago

Both of these guys suck. These lyrics are the intellectual property of the people who actually wrote them.

So lets say I know the lyrics to a song that I don't own and the song is new. Do you reckon I can't write those lyrics down and teach them to someone because they "are" someone's intellectual property?

b_tterc_p 7y ago
I believe he's saying you can't accuse an unrelated third party of stealing the lyrics from you, because you don't own them in the first place.
- giancarlostoro 7y ago
  This is what baffles me the most. However if you are directly fetching them from someones servers you should at least provide attribution if you are wasting their resources.
  - p49k 7y ago
    You should provide more than that. It’s not just server resources but data entry and proofing and whatever else goes into making their product. Genius pays royalties for using the lyrics - I don’t see why the fact that they don’t belong to Genius is relevant. If Amazon licenses a TV show that Netflix also licensed, it doesn’t give them the right to copy Netflix’s UI, descriptions, transcoded/edited video streams, etc.

vorpalhex 7y ago

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

CPLX 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.
jp57 7y ago
Crowdsourcing unpublished lyrics without permission is copyright infringement against the copyright owner of the lyrics--usually the songwriter or their publishing company. One of the rights conferred by copyright is the right to not publish.

p49k 7y ago

Genius pays royalties for using the lyrics - if their own site is to believed (and why wouldn’t it?) they’ve struck deals with every major music publisher to license display of lyrics. I don't see how that's relevant to Google taking the rest of Genius's work (data entry/proofing/etc).

JeremyBanks 7y ago
They're obviously lying, yes. Maybe they do that now, but users used to at least to be able to add lyrics for any artist and song they wanted. There wasn't a license waiting period or anything before they went up.

drngdds 7y ago

It's hard for me to imagine that the world would actually be a better place if you couldn't post the lyrics to a song without paying the rights holders or getting sued.