Got to love this exchange - you have Genius coming out saying we caught Google red handed stealing/scraping our lyrics from our web site. Google then yesterday says, we didn't do it, we paid for LyricFind to give us these lyrics they may have stolen from you guys - so blame them. Then LyricFind is like, we asked Genius for more details and they didn't get back to us - so what do you want from us.
This is not a joke - this is really what is going on right now.
The outcome, which I like, is that Google will be showing in the search results where they license (pay for) the lyrics by adding an attribution to the lyrics box. Google wrote "To help make it clearer where the lyrics come from, we’ll soon include attribution to the third party providing the digital lyrics text."
Here is what Google wrote:
Here’s something you might not know: music publishers often don’t have digital copies of the lyrics text. In these cases, we—like music streaming services and other companies—license the lyrics text from third parties.We do not crawl or scrape websites to source these lyrics. 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.
News reports this week suggested that one of our lyrics content providers is in a dispute with a lyrics site about where their written lyrics come from. We’ve asked our lyrics partner to investigate the issue to ensure that they’re following industry best practices in their approach. We always strive to uphold high standards of conduct for ourselves and from the partners we work with.
The LyricFind web site wrote:
Some time ago, Ben Gross from Genius notified LyricFind that they believed they were seeing Genius lyrics in LyricFind’s database. As a courtesy to Genius, our content team was instructed not to consult Genius as a source. Recently, Genius raised the issue again and provided a few examples. All of those examples were also available on many other lyric sites and services, raising the possibility that our team unknowingly sourced Genius lyrics from another location.As a result, LyricFind offered to remove any lyrics Genius felt had originated from them, even though we did not source them from Genius’ site. Genius declined to respond to that offer. Despite that, our team is currently investigating the content in our database and removing any lyrics that seem to have originated from Genius.
Here is Danny Sullivan defending Google on Twitter:
The data source for lyrics will be attributed to the licensed provider they came from.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) June 18, 2019
Ideally, we'd get lyrics directly from music labels and artists, as the post explains. As the post also explains, they generally don't have these. So we'll work with licensed partners just as other major companies do. And as explained, we are having it all investigated more.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) June 18, 2019
You might also read this: https://t.co/wJ39A5C8qa
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) June 18, 2019
You can click on the feedback link to send feedback. It's also a different issue, the attribution of who a song is by vs who provided the lyrics. And yes, we can sometimes confuse artists.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) June 19, 2019
Also remember that when someone searches for a popular covered song, we don't know which artist they want, if not specified. So we'll do our best. If we get specifics, then we respond in turn. And the lyricist credits stay the same. pic.twitter.com/lwDI2yii3I
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) June 19, 2019
I do think the attribution thing should help a lot and should have been done long ago, even though Google is paying for it, sourcing where it came from is always helpful.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
