4 ms·

>Genius doesn’t have a copyright claim because it doesn’t own the lyrics. Both Genius and Google hold licenses from music publishers to print song lyrics Geniu

>Genius doesn’t have a copyright claim because it doesn’t own the lyrics. Both Genius and Google hold licenses from music publishers to print song lyrics Genius makes the lyrics publicly available on the web and there was just a good outcome on web scraping public data. I can't imagine Genius has a case here but IANAL.

FireBeyond 7y ago
If I make content publicly available on my website, should you be able to scrape it wholesale, AND commercialize it, AND tell me to piss off when I raise a complaint? If so, why?
- alwaysdoit 7y ago
  Because the lyrics are not copyrighted by you, they are copyrighted by the Artist, whom Google and LyricsFind have a contract with to give them permission to use those lyrics?
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    You might want to look at the concept of transcription, particularly germane to music. A transcription can be a creative work, so it can be protected by copyright. A transcription is copying and transforming an original work in a particular (symbolic). The original work that the transcription is based on is also protected by copyright, so to make the copy that embodies the transcription, you need permission from the original rights holder. Splicing the transcription onto an illegal copy of an original performance is also copyright infringement, but resynthesis based on the transcription is not. A transcription also might not be entitled to copyright protection, if it is the product of a computer program, since feeding a sound file into a program is not a creative activity. (The program that generated the transcription is, of course, protected by copyright). Ergo, there absolutely can be claims that you need to license my content, consisting of original synthesized copyrighted lyrics. I highly doubt Google or LyricsFind's contracts with the Artists or Labels says "We won't give you the lyrics, but if you find someone else has put them down on 'paper', go ahead and just slurp that up, regardless of their efforts, and make some money off of that for yourself, sucks to be them".
    - toast0 7y ago
      > I highly doubt Google or LyricsFind's contracts with the Artists or Labels says "We won't give you the lyrics, but if you find someone else has put them down on 'paper', go ahead and just slurp that up, regardless of their efforts, and make some money off of that for yourself, sucks to be them". That's pretty much what the contracts are; the rightsholders don't actually have the lyrics in a machine readable form; or if they do, they're from liner notes which often don't actually match the songs as performed on the media that came with the notes, so pretty worthless.
      - FireBeyond 7y ago
        In which case, worst case scenario, Genius is saying “then come up with them yourselves, you can’t plagiarize our efforts”. Note that the anticompetitive part of the info boxes is a far different and separate issue.
        nvrspyx 7y ago
        They're not Genius' efforts to begin with. Lyrics are transcribed by users or given to them by the artists themselves and then Genius adds the watermarks mentioned in the lawsuit. Worst case scenario, Genius is saying "you can't benefit off the efforts of our users, only we can". It seems that the only thing giving Genius any footing is their Terms of Service, which ToS tend to be unenforceable. Also consider the case involving LinkedIn which set precedence in being able to scrape public information. Then again, IANAL so they may have more footing than I realize and/or they may do some transcription themselves, but it is largely their users.
        FireBeyond 7y ago
        > They're not Genius' efforts to begin with. Lyrics are transcribed by users Users who have consented to supply said efforts to Genius. Not to Google. Or LyricFind.
        nvrspyx 7y ago
- unreal37 7y ago
  What if you're just republishing someone else's content? It's not your original content, you're just publishing someone else's? Can I scrape your website to get that content I am legally allowed to get (because I have a paid license)?
- toast0 7y ago
  "Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States establishing that information alone without a minimum of original creativity cannot be protected by copyright" Given that the lyrics aren't owned by Genius, and that Google has a license to them, there's no reasonable claim of copyright violation. There have been several cases lately that seem to suggest there's no problem with using public data either. If you don't like it, don't make the data public. Require a login, and then you might have a case.
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    “Phantom streets”. Come up with the same map as me based on research and first principles, you’re safe. Plagiarize my effort and in the process capture the fake/non existent streets I -added- to the map to show that you were plagiarizing my work? Then absolutely I have a case against you. Come up with the same lyrics for a song as I do based on listening to it? Fine. Cutting and pasting my content, including unnecessary embedded Unicode spaces used to watermark my content, my transcription (see my other comment on this), absolutely problematic and actionable.
    - cthalupa 7y ago
      Perhaps this varies from country to country, but for the US, doesn't Nester's Map & Guide Corp. v. Hagstrom Map Co. explicitly say that you cannot copyright these fake streets and someone creating a map that includes them would not be grounds alone for infringement?
  - edmundsauto 7y ago
    The watermarks they encoded to identify the original source are pretty creative :).
- criddell 7y ago
  This lawsuit doesn't revolve around copyright, does it? Isn't Genius claiming that scraping the lyrics is a violation of their EULA?
  - FireBeyond 7y ago
    The other issue Google / LyricsFind has is that their response wasn’t “this is totally okay, you have no case”, but “we would never do that, we would investigate, and cancel licensing agreements with anyone doing that”. And then not doing that. And instead concealing and fixing the watermark that allowed the -detection- of the issue. You can’t do that, and make the statements above and then credibly try to argue “nothing to see here, you have no rights”.
unreal37 7y ago
This is like a re-trial of the famous Supreme Court case that the white pages phone directory cannot be copyrighted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R.... Facts are not copyrightable. And a collection of facts are not copyrightable. There has to be some spark of creativity or originality even small. Wonder what Genius is claiming makes their lyrics "original" compared to what they get from the source...

FireBeyond 7y ago

If I make content publicly available on my website, should you be able to scrape it wholesale, AND commercialize it, AND tell me to piss off when I raise a complaint? If so, why?

alwaysdoit 7y ago
Because the lyrics are not copyrighted by you, they are copyrighted by the Artist, whom Google and LyricsFind have a contract with to give them permission to use those lyrics?
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  You might want to look at the concept of transcription, particularly germane to music. A transcription can be a creative work, so it can be protected by copyright. A transcription is copying and transforming an original work in a particular (symbolic). The original work that the transcription is based on is also protected by copyright, so to make the copy that embodies the transcription, you need permission from the original rights holder. Splicing the transcription onto an illegal copy of an original performance is also copyright infringement, but resynthesis based on the transcription is not. A transcription also might not be entitled to copyright protection, if it is the product of a computer program, since feeding a sound file into a program is not a creative activity. (The program that generated the transcription is, of course, protected by copyright). Ergo, there absolutely can be claims that you need to license my content, consisting of original synthesized copyrighted lyrics. I highly doubt Google or LyricsFind's contracts with the Artists or Labels says "We won't give you the lyrics, but if you find someone else has put them down on 'paper', go ahead and just slurp that up, regardless of their efforts, and make some money off of that for yourself, sucks to be them".
  - toast0 7y ago
    > I highly doubt Google or LyricsFind's contracts with the Artists or Labels says "We won't give you the lyrics, but if you find someone else has put them down on 'paper', go ahead and just slurp that up, regardless of their efforts, and make some money off of that for yourself, sucks to be them". That's pretty much what the contracts are; the rightsholders don't actually have the lyrics in a machine readable form; or if they do, they're from liner notes which often don't actually match the songs as performed on the media that came with the notes, so pretty worthless.
    - FireBeyond 7y ago
      In which case, worst case scenario, Genius is saying “then come up with them yourselves, you can’t plagiarize our efforts”. Note that the anticompetitive part of the info boxes is a far different and separate issue.
      - nvrspyx 7y ago
        They're not Genius' efforts to begin with. Lyrics are transcribed by users or given to them by the artists themselves and then Genius adds the watermarks mentioned in the lawsuit. Worst case scenario, Genius is saying "you can't benefit off the efforts of our users, only we can". It seems that the only thing giving Genius any footing is their Terms of Service, which ToS tend to be unenforceable. Also consider the case involving LinkedIn which set precedence in being able to scrape public information. Then again, IANAL so they may have more footing than I realize and/or they may do some transcription themselves, but it is largely their users.
        FireBeyond 7y ago
        > They're not Genius' efforts to begin with. Lyrics are transcribed by users Users who have consented to supply said efforts to Genius. Not to Google. Or LyricFind.
        nvrspyx 7y ago
unreal37 7y ago
What if you're just republishing someone else's content? It's not your original content, you're just publishing someone else's? Can I scrape your website to get that content I am legally allowed to get (because I have a paid license)?
toast0 7y ago
"Feist Publications, Inc., v. Rural Telephone Service Co., 499 U.S. 340 (1991), was a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States establishing that information alone without a minimum of original creativity cannot be protected by copyright" Given that the lyrics aren't owned by Genius, and that Google has a license to them, there's no reasonable claim of copyright violation. There have been several cases lately that seem to suggest there's no problem with using public data either. If you don't like it, don't make the data public. Require a login, and then you might have a case.
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  “Phantom streets”. Come up with the same map as me based on research and first principles, you’re safe. Plagiarize my effort and in the process capture the fake/non existent streets I -added- to the map to show that you were plagiarizing my work? Then absolutely I have a case against you. Come up with the same lyrics for a song as I do based on listening to it? Fine. Cutting and pasting my content, including unnecessary embedded Unicode spaces used to watermark my content, my transcription (see my other comment on this), absolutely problematic and actionable.
  - cthalupa 7y ago
    Perhaps this varies from country to country, but for the US, doesn't Nester's Map & Guide Corp. v. Hagstrom Map Co. explicitly say that you cannot copyright these fake streets and someone creating a map that includes them would not be grounds alone for infringement?
- edmundsauto 7y ago
  The watermarks they encoded to identify the original source are pretty creative :).
criddell 7y ago
This lawsuit doesn't revolve around copyright, does it? Isn't Genius claiming that scraping the lyrics is a violation of their EULA?
- FireBeyond 7y ago
  The other issue Google / LyricsFind has is that their response wasn’t “this is totally okay, you have no case”, but “we would never do that, we would investigate, and cancel licensing agreements with anyone doing that”. And then not doing that. And instead concealing and fixing the watermark that allowed the -detection- of the issue. You can’t do that, and make the statements above and then credibly try to argue “nothing to see here, you have no rights”.

unreal37 7y ago

This is like a re-trial of the famous Supreme Court case that the white pages phone directory cannot be copyrighted. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._Rural_Telephone_Service_Co https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feist_Publications,_Inc.,_v._R.... Facts are not copyrightable. And a collection of facts are not copyrightable. There has to be some spark of creativity or originality even small. Wonder what Genius is claiming makes their lyrics "original" compared to what they get from the source...