For the first few years of its existence , Genius ( formerly Rap Genius ) featured annotated song lyrics on its chopine without license of music publishers . Now Genius is accusing Google of steal its depicted object without license . And it ’s used an clever mechanism to entrance Google in the human activity .

In May 2014,Genius finally made a licensing agreementwith medicine publishers following months of unfavorable judgment from the National Music Publishers Association patronage radical . But since then , the company has become more implicated with how others are using their substance .

On Sunday , theWall Street Journal reportedthat Genius accused Google of pull lyrics from Genius.com and publishing the content on its platform . When the great unwashed look for songs on Google , an “ entropy instrument panel ” often seem near the top that shows the lyrics . Genius believes those lyrics , at least in some illustration , come straight from Genius . The ship’s company blames a diminution in traffic to its site on Google ’s transgressions .

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Screenshot: (Genius Media)

WSJ report that Genius told Google originally this year and in 2017 that it knew Google was using Genius ’ transcription and warned that the action violated antitrust law and broke the company ’s terms of overhaul .

https://gizmodo.com/facing-antitrust-pressure-google-starts-spinning-its-o-1835520512

“ Google knowingly displays lyrics that are copy from Genius in search outcome for keep user from leaving Google to go to other internet site , ” sensation chief strategy policeman Ben Gross told Gizmodo , in a instruction . “ They have know about this for two days and it ’s clearly unjust and anticompetitive . ”

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

Genius severalise WSJ it was able to essay this because it hid a kind of hidden code in its lyrics . In song lyrics , the troupe alternates the type of apostrophes it use — some curly and some straight — in a specific succession . When these unlike apostrophes are turned into dots and dashes , they reportedly spell out “ red pass on ” in Morse computer code . Genius confirmed to Gizmodo that it found lyrics on Google that had the “ red handed ” formula .

When WSJ was report the story , Google deny it had done anything wrong and said the lyrics that come along in information panels are licence from third - company mate .

One such partner is the Canadian caller LyricFind , which has agreement with medicine partner . The company ’s chief executive Darryl Ballantyne order WSJ his society does n’t pull content from Genius . get hold of for comment by Gizmodo , Ballantyne tell LyricFind is “ preparing a statement to correct the inaccuracies in current reportage ” that he will provide when available . We will update this post when LyricFind share a affirmation .

William Duplessie

After the WSJ clause — which verified Genius ’ claims that its code appear in Google - display lyrics — was write , Google put out a new statement , which it also shared with Gizmodo . The Google spokesperson said the lyrics appearing in Google search are licensed from many rootage and not straight scrape from website .

“ We take datum quality and creator right very seriously , and carry our licensing partners accountable to the terms of our accord , ” the representative said , “ We ’re investigating this issue with our data partners and if we find that partners are not uphold undecomposed practices we will terminate our agreements . ”

Update 3:15 p.m. EST : LyricFindreleased a responseto the WSJ clause that suggests the fellowship may have “ unknowingly source Genius lyric poem from another location . ”

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The response also swan that Genius is blow up the issue . “ Genius claims , and the WSJ repeated , that there are 100 lyrics from Genius in our database , ” the statement read . “ To put this into perspective , our database presently contains nearly 1.5 million lyrics . In the last year alone , our content team created or so 100,000 new lyric files . The scale of Genius ’ claims is minuscule and clearly not systemic . ”

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