"Genius" site said it used Morse code to catch Google stealing song lyrics

[ed_]

Google denies doing anything nefarious. Still, Genius's complaints offer a window into the challenges small tech companies can face when the unit of Alphabet Inc. starts offering competing services on its platform... Genius said it notified Google as far back as 2017, and again in an April letter, that copied transcriptions appear on Google's website. The April letter, a copy of which was viewed by the Journal, warned that reuse of Genius's transcriptions breaks the Genius.com terms of service and violates antitrust law. 

 

"Over the last two years, we've shown Google irrefutable evidence again and again that they are displaying lyrics copied from Genius," said Ben Gross, Genius's chief strategy officer, in an email message.... Genius said it found more than 100 examples of songs on Google that came from its site. Starting around 2016, Genius made a subtle change to some of the songs on its website, alternating the lyrics' apostrophes between straight and curly single-quote marks in exactly the same sequence for every song. When the two types of apostrophes were converted to the dots and dashes used in Morse code, they spelled out the words "Red Handed." 

 

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/19/06/16/2052214/genius-site-said-it-used-morse-code-to-catch-google-stealing-song-lyrics

 

 

Edited June 17, 2019 by ed_

[daredevil]

Since when Lyrics are copyrighted? I mean, you purchase songs and that's being it? I understand Google is doing unethical wrong but as per law, you can't block them. I am just curious, if anyone knows any law where Lyrics can be copyrighted? 

[ed_]

This is not about the rights to lyrics, but about the fact that Google used Genius resources to copy this content. Google denied, but Genius has made a trap for content thieves.

[RedBaird]

Snippets from a page-link on the SlashDot site:  https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/TDJNDN_20190616479/lyrics-site-geniuscom-accuses-google-of-lifting-its-content.html

 

"In 2016, Google partnered with LyricFind Inc., a Canadian company that secures deals with music publishers allowing companies such as Google to publish lyrics online. LyricFind Chief Executive Darryl Ballantyne said in an email that his company creates lyrics using its own content team. "We do not source lyrics from Genius," he said.  "

 

" It also means Google is directing a smaller share of those queries to other sites. In March, 62% of mobile searches on Google didn't result in a user clicking through to another website, according to the web-analytics firm Jumpshot Inc.  "

 

" Google previously has disrupted companies' business models by switching from referring traffic via search to providing services directly on Google websites. "

 

" As a result, clicks to web publishers have been dropping on desktop search, Mr. Fishkin said. Desktop searches end without a click to another website about 35% of the time. That's up about 9% since 2016, according to Jumpshot. " .