Google wins lawsuit with Genius over lyrics

Lyrics platform Genius filed a lawsuit in 2019 claiming that Google showed the lyrics on the platform in search results without their permission. The platform, which appealed after a lawsuit concluded against Genius in 2020, received a negative response once again.

Another victory from Google

Genius, who defines himself as “the world’s largest music encyclopedia”, stated that he used the lyrics on Google’s website in the search results without any permission from them. Despite this, Genius, who sued Google, which did not show themselves as a source, lost to Google for the second time in the past few days.

Google announced that they did not crawl any website to be displayed in search results at the time of the lawsuit, and that they had an agreement with Canadian song licensing site LyricFind.

In August 2020, a court ruled that the stated situation did not constitute copyright infringement, since Genius was not the actual copyright holder of the lyrics, and stated that only songwriters or publishers could bring such a case.

Genius, who appealed afterwards, faced a negative response again after the hearing that took place in the past days. The court of appeal affirmed the earlier decision, finding it correct.

No statement has been made by Google or Genius yet after this decision.