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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 us

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
        I get the logic, but I also think it's a bit of a stretch. They may unknowingly consent to that, but you have to go out of your way to read the Terms of Service to consent to that specifically and I would imagine most people are just trying to provide or fix lyrics so others can easily find them, not so Genius can have them exclusively as that's certainly not how most users think. It also brings up a good point on whether Genius should have exclusive rights to something in which they gained that exclusivity from uninformed "consent" of their users' efforts. If transcribed lyrics are copyrightable, why should Genius hold that right and not the users' when Genius are claiming that right by hiding their Terms of Use as a tiny link made to seem like it's part of the website's copyright/trademark notice[0]. I'm inclined to believe that Genius are purposefully being deceitful in how they link to their Terms of Use to avoid flack. [0]: https://imgur.com/DP5fmre https://imgur.com/DP5fmre

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
        I get the logic, but I also think it's a bit of a stretch. They may unknowingly consent to that, but you have to go out of your way to read the Terms of Service to consent to that specifically and I would imagine most people are just trying to provide or fix lyrics so others can easily find them, not so Genius can have them exclusively as that's certainly not how most users think. It also brings up a good point on whether Genius should have exclusive rights to something in which they gained that exclusivity from uninformed "consent" of their users' efforts. If transcribed lyrics are copyrightable, why should Genius hold that right and not the users' when Genius are claiming that right by hiding their Terms of Use as a tiny link made to seem like it's part of the website's copyright/trademark notice[0]. I'm inclined to believe that Genius are purposefully being deceitful in how they link to their Terms of Use to avoid flack. [0]: https://imgur.com/DP5fmre https://imgur.com/DP5fmre