Google Says It Didn’t Scrape Data from Genius

Two days after the Genius media website accused Google of scraping its song lyric data, the online giant issued a simple retort: We didn’t do it.

“We do not crawl or scrape websites to source [song] lyrics,” Google’s Satyajeet Salgar explains. “The lyrics that you see in information boxes on Search come directly from lyrics content providers, and they are updated automatically as we receive new lyrics and corrections on a regular basis.”

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In other words, it was one of Google’s lyric content providers that scraped Genius’s lyrics. Not Google.

“We’ve asked our lyrics partners to investigate the issue to ensure that they’re following industry best practices in their approach,” he continues. “We always strive to uphold high standards of conduct for ourselves and from the partners we work with.”

Google hasn’t named the partner that it suspects of scraping data from Genius.

This incident is an interesting example of the knee-jerk reaction that often occurs in the wake of news stories involving Big Tech. As our own Brad Sams noted, “Google wields a significant amount of power over what and how users see content,” and this alleged lyrics scraping represented “one more piece of evidence of the company potentially abusing its position in the marketplace.”

The assumption by many, of course, was that Google was guilty. But it seems now that it was a Google partner, and not Google, that stole Genius’ data without attribution.

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Conversation 34 comments

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    19 June, 2019 - 8:34 am

    <p>So, they are only guilty of receiving stolen goods? Fencing stolen goods? ;-)</p>

    • nicholas_kathrein

      19 June, 2019 - 8:53 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#436170">In reply to wright_is:</a></em></blockquote><p>You have to know they are stolen to break the law. If I'm paying a company to lyrics then I am expecting them to give me legal goods. If google buys vehicles from a company for their employees they don't expect them to be stolen. </p>

      • Paul Thurrott

        Premium Member
        19 June, 2019 - 9:16 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#436181">In reply to Nicholas_Kathrein:</a></em></blockquote><p>Right. And when altered to this theft, Google did the right thing.</p>

        • wright_is

          Premium Member
          19 June, 2019 - 10:03 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#436187">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>They did the right thing? They've stopped surfacing lyrics until this is resolved?</p>

          • ReformedCtrlZ

            Premium Member
            19 June, 2019 - 10:20 am

            <blockquote><em><a href="#436198">In reply to wright_is:</a></em></blockquote><p>They called it in, followed up with their content providers, and are correcting the issue. They also said they will begin surfacing who their content providers are for lyrics</p>

        • lvthunder

          Premium Member
          19 June, 2019 - 10:33 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#436187">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>No they didn't. The right thing is to license the lyrics from the song writers (or publishers) and not some now known to be shady third party.</p>

          • Sprtfan

            19 June, 2019 - 10:39 am

            <blockquote><em><a href="#436209">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>I believe they do license the lyrics from the publishers but the publishers don't always have the lyrics in a digital format. That is where the 3rd party comes in. </p>

      • lvthunder

        Premium Member
        19 June, 2019 - 10:32 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#436181">In reply to Nicholas_Kathrein:</a></em></blockquote><p>Try telling that to the cops when you get caught with stolen merchandise.</p>

  • John Muir

    19 June, 2019 - 8:53 am

    <p>Don't suppose you could list the evidence or an example of the morse code in the source ? </p>

    • Paul Thurrott

      Premium Member
      19 June, 2019 - 9:15 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#436182">In reply to John_Muir:</a></em></blockquote><p>Why?</p><p><br></p><p>The lyrics were stolen. Google is saying that it was a partner that did this, not it. </p>

      • lvthunder

        Premium Member
        19 June, 2019 - 10:35 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#436186">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>So why isn't Google suing this partner for selling them stolen property?</p>

        • MikeGalos

          19 June, 2019 - 10:40 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#436210">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>And announcing who their new partner is and their new process for vetting their content providers and why they didn't catch it themselves or stop it when first notified</p>

          • davidblouin

            19 June, 2019 - 4:19 pm

            <blockquote><em><a href="#436214">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>Google seems to be exempt from the high transparency standard that Thurrot.com usually demands from other compagny like Microsoft or Apple for an unknown reason.</p>

      • dnwheeler

        19 June, 2019 - 12:34 pm

        <blockquote><em><a href="#436186">In reply to paul-thurrott:</a></em></blockquote><p>Except the lyrics aren't stolen. Google licenses them (the underlying words) from the publishers. It doesn't matter where they got the copy they display – the publisher hold the copyrights. If someone else has a license to display lyrics, they can copy them from Google if they want.</p><p><br></p><p>Also, we're talking about copyright, not theft – completely different legal framework.</p>

      • John Muir

        19 June, 2019 - 3:50 pm

        <blockquote>I believe you. I just want to see how they did it, I had a look at a few song lyrics from google and couldnt find anything in the page source.</blockquote><blockquote><br></blockquote><blockquote>Just interested to see what it looks like thats all.</blockquote><p><br></p>

  • MikeGalos

    19 June, 2019 - 9:31 am

    <p>Either way Google is responsible.</p><p>Their defense is equivalent to saying, "We didn't steal those televisions, your honor. We just based our business off retailing sets we bought from a guy who told us they fell off the back of a truck."</p><p><br></p>

    • rxminus

      21 June, 2019 - 4:15 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#436191">In reply to MikeGalos:</a></em></blockquote><p>Except that the guy who sold them the television is BestBuy. There was no need to be suspicious on Google's part</p>

  • Sprtfan

    19 June, 2019 - 10:31 am

    <p>Doing a little digging and it seems more complicated than this but ultimately Google probably didn't do anything wrong and the story got blown out of proportion. Sounds like Lyricfind might have been the 3rd party that Google was getting lyrics from and Genius has been going after them for a while about taking their lyrics. Little was being done to stop it so Genius might have pointed at Google in hopes of making something happen? </p><p>All that said, as long as you license the lyrics from the <span style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51);">publisher</span>, it really might not make a difference were you actually get the lyrics from. Genius license to the lyrics does not grant it any other rights beyond being able to display those lyrics itself. It has no exclusivity. It doesn't hold the copyright. I'm sure someone will point out if I'm wrong but this was my take on it and maybe Genius is adding something unique of value but if it is just the lyrics, I can't see that being the case. </p>

    • lvthunder

      Premium Member
      19 June, 2019 - 10:51 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#436205">In reply to Sprtfan:</a></em></blockquote><p>If you license them from the publisher then the publisher should provide them.</p>

      • Sprtfan

        19 June, 2019 - 11:18 am

        <blockquote><em><a href="#436216">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>Maybe they should but they don't. The lyrics are available but not in a format that can be displayed. The fact that the publishers don't always give a digital copy of the lyrics seems to be known</p>

        • lvthunder

          Premium Member
          19 June, 2019 - 11:24 am

          <blockquote><em><a href="#436221">In reply to Sprtfan:</a></em></blockquote><p>This is a company who sends people to the library to scan books. You mean to tell me they can't do the same here if the publishers don't give you a digital copy?</p>

          • Sprtfan

            19 June, 2019 - 11:30 am

            <blockquote><em><a href="#436225">In reply to lvthunder:</a></em></blockquote><p>How do you scan a song like you would a book? For the content that they don't get a text copy for they hire a 3rd party to do it. That 3rd party has to have the content licensed from the publisher as well. </p>

  • lvthunder

    Premium Member
    19 June, 2019 - 10:31 am

    <p>Wow what a pass you are giving. I bet you wouldn't be giving Apple that same pass you are giving to Google. </p><p><br></p><p>It is Google who is ultimately responsible for what ends up on Google's website. Obviously just their content that isn't user generated. Google is big enough they should of bought the rights for the lyrics from the song writers and not some third party.</p>

  • train_wreck

    19 June, 2019 - 11:22 am

    <p>They actually did name the partner. “LyricFind”.</p>

  • melinau

    Premium Member
    19 June, 2019 - 11:43 am

    <p>The "Nuffink to do wiv me guv" gambit.</p><p>Google published the lyrics, so in any context other than Internet Lala land should take responsibility for what they publish. Typical of the arrogance of Big Tech</p>

  • markmagnus

    Premium Member
    19 June, 2019 - 11:45 am

    <p>Since Google never deletes any data, it should be simple for them to scan their own records and identify whose submissions had the Morse code in them. Be interesting to see if it came from more than once source. Any bets?</p>

  • dnwheeler

    19 June, 2019 - 12:26 pm

    <p>Google is licensing the lyrics from the publishers and has a legal right to display them. Where they got the copies they display isn't relevant. Genius has no copyright on their copy – switching the apostrophes doesn't make this a new creative work.</p>

  • dontbe evil

    19 June, 2019 - 3:09 pm

    <p>LOL … what a surprise /s</p>

  • nobody9

    19 June, 2019 - 4:07 pm

    <p>This is such a long-standing non-story, along the likes of that other over-hyped topic, aka millenial bartender-turned-politician. Why should public song-lyrics be the exclusive property of anyone that didn't write/sing them in the first place? Get a life people!</p>

    • rxminus

      21 June, 2019 - 4:12 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#436321">In reply to nobody9:</a></em></blockquote><p>They are not public lyrics. They are copyrighted works the moment they are written down by the author (although often those rights are transferred to the publisher). They then they have the option to give other people the right to copy / distribute those lyrics. It's as if you buy an expensive painting, a friend comes by your house and makes a picture of it and starts selling that picture online.</p>

  • Bats

    19 June, 2019 - 11:42 pm

    <p>"Morse Code Helps Prove Google is Stealing Content from Genius.com" – Brad Sams</p><p><br></p><p>"<span style="color: rgb(49, 50, 51);">Google has been found to be using content from Genius.com without attribution, this is one more piece of evidence of the company potentially abusing its position in the marketplace" – Brad Sams</span></p><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgb(49, 50, 51);">#knee-jerkreaction</span></p>

  • nbplopes

    20 June, 2019 - 6:03 am

    <p>Why would a tech company with the expertise of Google hire another company to do the scraping?</p><p><br></p><p>heck they already scrape the data for indexing an search. How do people think they feed the search engine?</p>

    • rxminus

      21 June, 2019 - 4:08 am

      <blockquote><em><a href="#436425">In reply to nbplopes:</a></em></blockquote><p>They didn't hire a company to do scraping…that's the point. They license buckets of content from partners so they don't have to individually license every song. If that partner doesn't have a license themselves and instead scraped the data then they are in violation of their agreement with Google.</p>

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