Three years after being dragged to court, Google gets a favourable ruling over its lyrics copyright battle with Genius.
Genius had seemed poised for a historic win over Google when it sued the search engine giant in 2019. It had come with proof that Google indeed used its lyrics in search results without linking back to its website. Genius had hidden watermarks in its lyrics to obtain the proof, which appeared on Google searches.
However, despite the damning evidence, it was not enough to assure the ‘world’s biggest music encyclopedia’ a win. How so?
Genius had been suing for a copyright violation. According to an earlier ruling in 2020, which still stood in the new judgment, Judge Margo Brodie of the Eastern District of New York said:
“[The] breach of contract claims are nothing more than claims seeking to enforce the copyright owners’ exclusive rights to protection from unauthorized reproduction of the lyrics.”
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The ruling had been that while Google clearly scraped the lyrics from the Genius website, the company itself does not own the lyrics right and could not claim a violation. The lyrics belong to the musicians who wrote them and not to the contributors who sourced them for Genius.
While this ruling might have gone in Google’s favour, it does still raise the issue of anti-competitiveness. If Google is using Genius lyrics on searches but not giving it the necessary clicks by adding links, it means that the search engine is abusing its power. Likely, giving the clicks to a partnering lyric website.
Don’t be surprised if this court ruling is raised in the next antitrust hearing of tech companies.
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