The U.S. Supreme Court has recently rejected an appeal by the website Genius to revive its lawsuit against Google, alleging that Google improperly used its song lyric transcripts in search results without permission.
The court’s decision upholds a previous ruling that dismissed Genius’ breach-of-contract claims against Google. Genius had argued that a favorable outcome for Google could set a precedent for other tech companies to unlawfully appropriate content from websites like Reddit, eBay, and Wikipedia that aggregate user-generated information.
In 2019, Genius, formerly known as Rap Genius, filed a lawsuit in New York State court, accusing Google of copying and displaying its lyrics without authorization, thereby redirecting web traffic that should have gone to the Genius website.
Genius, although not holding copyrights in the lyrics, accused Google of violating its terms of service by unlawfully copying and reposting its work.
The lawsuit specifically highlighted Google’s alleged infringement of lyrics from songs like “Panda” by Desiigner, citing similarities in the posted content.
Genius also claimed that Google copied lyrics from artists such as Kendrick Lamar, Selena Gomez, and Alessia Cara by using watermarks as evidence.
Notably, Genius included a distinctive pattern of apostrophes in its transcriptions, spelling out ‘RED HANDED’ in Morse code. The company argued, “Sure enough, Genius caught Google with its hand in the cookie jar: The ‘RED HANDED’ message soon began to appear in the lyrics in Google’s information boxes.”
The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York upheld a ruling in 2022, stating that Genius’ breach-of-contract claims were closely tied to copyright issues and should be pursued through a copyright lawsuit.
Genius appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, arguing that it would allow tech giants like Google to exploit content without consequences and enhance their dominance on the internet.
Google countered by asserting that it possessed licenses for the lyrics in question and claimed that Genius was attempting to create new rights through a supposed contract while disregarding the actual copyright owners.
In May, President Joe Biden’s administration recommended that the Supreme Court reject the appeal made by Genius.
