A state court has dismissed a high-profile case showing unsportsmanlike conduct by Google, which was caught red-handed using lyrics obviously scraped from Genius. Unfortunately for the latter, the complaints amount to a copyright violation — which wasn’t what the plaintiffs alleged, sinking the case.
The lawsuit, filed in December, accused Google of violating Genius’s terms of use and unjustly enriching itself by scraping lyrics on the site to be displayed on searches for songs. So, for instance, someone searching for “Your Love is Killing Me lyrics” would be shown the lyrics immediately instead of being sent to a site like Genius that hosted them.
Judge Brodie found that Genius’ lyric transcriptions are derivative works of the original lyrics, which are protected under Copyright Law. However, Genius doesn’t have the ability to sue for copyright infringement because “the case law is clear that only the original copyright owner has exclusive rights to authorize derivative works,” she wrote in the decision.
Full Content: Billboard
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