Three years ago, lyric provider Genius accused Google of snooping on users’ data without their permission. Despite being able to establish the allegations, the service lost yet another legal battle with Google. Genius has previously filed a lawsuit against Google. The action was dismissed by the court, however, because Genius did not hold the actual rights to the lyrics. While Genius users frequently write and post lyrics, the copyrights to the lyrics belong with the artists who originally penned them. Genius-added licenses and annotations are also not allowed to be used.
Only the rightholders have the ability to sue.
According to Verge, the second instance has now reaffirmed the judgment from 2020. As a result, the court agrees that Genius has no rights to the words and hence cannot sue Google. Despite the fact that the responsible courts did not deny that the search engine group stole the texts without permission, they determined that only the genuine rights holders, i.e. the artists, could bring a lawsuit against Google. Most songwriters, on the other hand, are unlikely to care whether or not the lyrics are provided.
