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mattstir | 9 months ago

Is it actually copyright infringement to state the lyrics of a song, though? How has Google / Genius etc gotten away with it for years if that were the case?

I suppose a difference would be that the lyric data is baked into the model. Maybe the argument would be that the model is infringing on copyright if it uses those lyrics in a derivative work later on, like if you ask it to help make a song? But even that seems more innocuous than say sampling a popular song in your own. Weird.

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pessimizer|9 months ago

There were years and years with lyrics sites being sued out of existence, blocked, moved from weird overseas host to weird overseas host, etc.. Also tablature sites.

Rap Genius was a massively financed Big Deal at the time (which seems unimaginable because it is so dumb, but all of the newspapers wanted to license their "technology.") They dealt with record companies and the RIAA directly, iirc. Google is google, and piggybacks off that. And the entire conflict became frozen after that, even through I'm sure that if you put up a lyrics site, you'd quickly get any number of cease and desists.

> Is it actually copyright infringement to state the lyrics of a song, though? How has Google / Genius etc gotten away with it for years if that were the case?

This shouldn't be treated like a rhetorical question that you assume google has the answer to, and just glide past. Copyright around song lyrics has a very rich, very recorded history.

pjc50|9 months ago

Genius is licensed: https://www.billboard.com/music/music-news/rap-genius-and-so...

Long ago lyrics.ch existed as an unlicensed lyrics site and was shutdown.

> sampling a popular song in your own

That also requires sample clearance, which can get expensive if your song becomes popular enough for them to come after you.

I'm not saying the licensing system is perfect, but I do object to it being enforced against random people on youtube while multibillion-dollar companies get a free pass.

Sharlin|9 months ago

Song lyrics, except for very trivial ones, constitute a work just like any piece of creative writing, and thus are obviously under copyright.