Lyrics site Genius used a digital watermark to see if other sites were copying its product — and it spelled 'redhanded' in Morse code
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The site became suspicious after noticing lyrics to Desiigner's 2016 hit "Panda" that appeared in a Google search results box matched its transcription character-for-character. After the discovery, Genius implemented a watermark using variations of apostrophes in its lyrics. People commonly assume music lyrics are provided to sites like Genius by publishers or labels, according to the complaint, but that's usually not the case. The company relies on "music enthusiasts" to transcribe the works, or obtains them from the artists themselves, and gets a license from the publisher to display and distribute them. Genius then licenses its lyrics database to companies including Apple.
Google revamped its site in late 2014 to expand the information box that appears at the top of search results and include lyrics, according to the complaint. When a user googles "Lose You To Love Me" lyrics, for example, Genius says the box displays them in full and a user has to scroll down past Google-owned products like YouTube and Google Play before arriving at organic results like the Genius site.
In April, Genius approached Google again and the tech giant identified LyricFind as the source of the lyrics at issue. So Genius sent LyricFind a cease and desist. Nothing changed until afterpublished a story about the alleged lyric lifting. After that, Genius says, its watermarked product disappeared from the information box results.
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