The U.S. Supreme Courtroom on Monday declined to listen to a bid by web site Genius to revive its lawsuit accusing Alphabet’s Google of misusing its transcripts of tune lyrics in search engine outcomes with out a license.
The justices turned away an attraction by Genius of a decrease courtroom’s choice blocking its breach-of-contract claims towards Google. Genius had argued {that a} win for Google might enable huge tech firms to steal content material with out repercussions from web sites corresponding to Reddit, eBay and Wikipedia that mixture user-created data.
Genius, previously often known as Rap Genius, maintains an unlimited database of tune lyrics. It sued Google in New York state courtroom in 2019, accusing it of copying and posting its lyrics transcripts on the high of search outcomes with out permission, diverting net visitors that ought to have gone to the Genius web site.
Genius doesn’t maintain copyrights within the lyrics, which often belong to the artists or publishers. But it surely accused Google of violating its phrases of service by stealing and reposting its work.
Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda mentioned the corporate appreciated the Supreme Courtroom’s choice.
“We license lyrics on Google Search from third events, and we don’t crawl or scrape web sites to supply lyrics,” Castaneda added.
Josh Rosenkranz, a lawyer for Genius, mentioned he and the corporate have been disillusioned that the Supreme Courtroom declined to take the case. Rosenkranz mentioned the decrease courtroom’s choice “permits firms like Google to swallow up their opponents by misappropriating their content material with none repercussions.”
The Genius lawsuit said that one of many first Google posts it suspected as copying concerned the lyrics for the tune “Panda” by the rapper Desiigner.
“I obtained broads in Atlanta,” a part of the tune’s lyrics learn. “Twistin’ dope, lean, and the Fanta. Bank cards and the scammers. Hittin’ off licks within the bando.”
Genius additionally cited songs by rapper Kendrick Lamar and pop singers Selena Gomez and Alessia Cara that it allegedly caught Google copying via using watermarks.
It mentioned in its petition for Supreme Courtroom evaluation that it included a particular sample of curly and straight apostrophes in transcriptions for some new songs that spelled out “RED HANDED” in Morse code.
“Positive sufficient, Genius caught Google with its hand within the cookie jar: The ‘RED HANDED’ message quickly started to appear within the lyrics in Google‘s data bins,” Genius advised the justices.
The New York-based 2nd U.S. Circuit Courtroom of Appeals in 2022 upheld a ruling that the Genius breach-of-contract claims have been based mostly on copyright issues and might be pursued solely in a copyright lawsuit.
Google advised the excessive courtroom that it holds licenses to the lyrics and argued that Genius needs to “ignore the true copyright homeowners and invent new rights via a purported contract.”
President Joe Biden’s administration beneficial in Might that the justices flip down the attraction.
