5 ms·
Like 8 years ago, I began annotating a Cormac McCarthy novel on Genius, and I quickly got a DM from a site admin who offered me a “Poetry Genius editor” positio
by setgree 5y ago
Like 8 years ago, I began annotating a Cormac McCarthy novel on Genius, and I quickly got a DM from a site admin who offered me a “Poetry Genius editor” position — tons of free karma and the ability to make edits without review — and encouraged me to keep writing. I didn’t pursue it very far and a few years later, I got another DM from a different admin saying that they were reducing the number of editors and:
> While reviewing your stuff, I noticed that you’ve got some really high quality work, but there are a few areas that could use a bit of improvement. Don’t worry, this doesn’t mean you’re guaranteed to be de-editored, it just means we need to work together on improving your annotations/acceptances
That sounded like work, so I declined :) And thus was my editorship revoked. I am going to guess that they had trouble ever getting a volunteer-editor model to stick.
P.S. the original DM thread offering me an editor position contains this gem:
> The deal with usage is this. We of course want to work on as much stuff in public domain (we have A LOT up there now). But if a newer text is elsewhere on the web we feel like it’s fair game.
Translation: if someone else shares content illegally, we can too
P.P.S. I think their SEO shenanigans [0) set them back a lot. Genius results still don’t come up very high when I google lyrics sometimes.
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2013/12/25/google-rap-genius/amp/ https://techcrunch.com/2013/12/25/google-rap-genius/amp/
- TuringNYC 5y agoCurious why bands dont enter their own lyrics? Isnt this a no-brainer for bands to do, so their lyrics are not mangled in the crowd-sourcing process? Or do they want people to struggle and settle upon the lyrics collectively as part of the entertainment process?
- jsudi 5y agoDo the bands have the rights to the lyrics?
- CydeWeys 5y agoIt's either them or their record company, or maybe a songwriter.
- CydeWeys 5y agoIf I were in a band, I'd upload the lyrics to my own site, to help drive traffic. Then once people are seeing your lyrics there, they'll see the upcoming tour schedule and album release date as well. Sure, Genius will then come along and copy-paste those lyrics, but that just means you have no reason to do it yourself.
- iamben 5y agoIsn't this a bit like the ecom thing? Like - I want to buy a "Philips Electric Toothbrush". I could go and buy it on their own site. But I'll probably (sorry) go straight to Amazon. Searching and checking out on Amazon is just so much mentally more efficient than navigating and buying from a site I'm not used to. I agree bands should definitely upload their own lyrics, but comparatively, if I'm listening to a record and I want to know song lyrics or (sometimes) check what they're singing about - I'll just go straight to Genius because I know how it's likely to be there and it's easy to use (especially compared to lots of other lyrics sites). Band websites are not what they were in the 90s - if they have them at all.
- pessimizer 5y agoBecause it doesn't benefit bands in any way when you read their lyrics on some other site. It benefits them a little bit if you read their lyrics on their site, because you might click around and discover that they're going to play in your town soon and fork out, or buy merch.
- acjohnson55 5y agoWouldn't that be a reason for Genius to try to drive some more value for the bands?
- wpietri 5y agoThis is true only if you are an Amazon/Genius user. If you aren't, it's just another site. After some Amazon anti-worker horribleness a year or two ago, I dropped my Prime subscription and now Amazon is my last resort for shopping. It turns out that as a web experience, it's pretty garbage these days. It's crammed with ads and dubious listings. So I think your "mentally more efficient" is what I'd call "habit". Ordering books from my local bookstore is just as quick and is definitely more pleasant.
- chrisseaton 5y agoWhat's in it for them? Why would they care about people mangling their lyrics?
- TuringNYC 5y agoI was part of a band (of sorts) in high school. You spent a lot of time on lyrics. You want people to appreciate the art w/o misunderstanding it.
- pessimizer 5y agoI was in touring bands for years, and I didn't care if anyone ever read my lyrics, or if they misunderstood them.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- res0nat0r 5y agoThere are artists who supply official annotations and additional insight into their lyrics. Example: https://genius.com/4196571 https://genius.com/4196571?
- mhh__ 5y agoThe lyrics are very rarely wrong IME. genius.com is also associated with explaining the lyrics, which I suspect only a minority of bands with lyrics worth explaining would actually do.
- trynewideas 5y agoMost of the time I spent on Genius was fixing incorrect lyrics, unfortunately. They'd often be copied from azlyrics or other shoddy predecessors, with errors unique to those third-party sources but not present in liner notes or other official sources. Unlike say, Wikipedia, Genius doesn't require or clearly associate sources with their content, so it's not easy to show your work, check for accuracy, and prove the lyrics are incorrect. Meanwhile, most of Genius's featured content involved artists explaining their own lyrics. It's a minority of artists, to be sure, because curated content isn't going to feature a majority of artists, but it comprised most of their branded work.
- squeaky-clean 5y agoLorde got asked a similar question on Hot Ones. She basically said that early in her musical career, she cared a lot about that (iirc she did submit things to Genius), but nowadays she thinks it's more fun to see how other people interpret her songs.
- notatoad 5y agolyrics are copyright, and the owners make money by licencing that content. If you search for song lyrics on google you get official licenced ones, not crowdsourced lyrics. to give them to Genius for free would de-value their licencing deals. if Genius was actually creating more value than the licencing deals, then i'm sure the labels would have been happy to work something out. But what's the value for the content owners to have their lyrics on Genius?
- wpietri 5y ago> That sounded like work, so I declined :) And thus was my editorship revoked. I am going to guess that they had trouble ever getting a volunteer-editor model to stick. As an early Quora Top Writer, I feel you on this. I really enjoyed it for a while, and it was nice to have an audience for my writing. But as the site grew and got more centrally controlled, it wore thin. Eventually some admin told me I was Doing It Wrong and I decided I'd had enough. In the years since I've decided that I'm just not going to give volunteer labor to for-profit things. If they want to make a zillion dollars, great, they can pay their workers like everybody else. If I get the urge to contribute, I can always work on Wikipedia, Wikidata, and other public-benefit projects.
- setgree 5y agoFunny, I had the same experience at Mic as well. In their early days, I was invited to contribute based on some distant social connection to a founder. Many years later I felt inspired to write something again and was told that they would only accept content if I wrote on their schedule and, IIRC, on topics of their choosing. I guess many of these user-generated content platforms go through similar growing pains on the Road To Monetization…and a lot of them are more fun to interact with in their “grow at all costs” phases
- CPLX 5y agoI still have my "Quora Top Writer 2013" fleece jacket though. So there's that.
- wpietri 5y agoWow, I think I do too! Definitely a quality swag item. Never wore it in public, though.
- dimitrios1 5y agoI guess you haven't had a wikipedia admin tell you "you're doing it wrong" yet, then. They are quite the slanted and tiny authoritarian bunch over there.
- 5y ago
- ghostbrainalpha 5y agoAre your notes on McCarthy still up? Which book did you do? I'm a huge fan, and would be willing to pay to have companion books, that explained his books to me while I was reading them.
- thrwyoilarticle 5y agoI also got an editor role for annotating an album I liked. Mahbod added me as a friend on Facebook and I got access to their social media. I didn't keep it up for long but I think someone tweeted something bad for PR not much later.