Google Wins a Genius Song Lyrics Lawsuit
The US Second Circuit appeals court last week declined to reinstate the lawsuit filed by lyrics site Genius against Google and LyricFind. The appellate judges concurred with the lower court that said Genius’s case was really a copyright case – despite it suing for breach of contract and unfair competition – and that the lyrics site couldn’t pursue such a case because it didn’t own the copyright in the lyrics it claims Google and LyricFind ripped off.
Genius first sued Google in late 2019, claiming that the tech giant was pulling lyrics from its website for use in the information boxes that appear on the Google search engine when you search for a song. It said it had caught Google nabbing its lyrics by strategically placing different kinds of apostrophes and spaces within the lyrics it published, and then watching as those specific combinations of apostrophes and spaces popped up on the Google platform.
