Google Stealing Lyrics Without Attribution?

Dec 8, 2015 - 7:56 am 14 by
Filed Under Google

Green Swirl Google 1900px

A year ago, Google began displaying lyrics in the search results as answers. It was assumed they sourced the lyrics from specific publishers with rights, attribution or payment.

However, there is a group of webmasters claiming at least with the Hello song from Adele that Google is stealing the lyrics from Metrolyrics. Their proof, the comments and additional text in the lyrics Google is showing in their lyrics answer.

Here is a picture:

Google Lyrics No Attribution

Yvo Schaap said on his blog that "Not only do these lyrics have random characters and weird sentences mixed into them, these weird errors reveal that Google (badly) scraped the lyrics from Metrolyrics (owned by CBS), only to strip the source, not show any source credits, but even attributed them to their own Google Play product as a promotion."

I am trying to give Google the benefit of the doubt. Maybe both Metrolyrics source and Google's source is the same paid source?

What do you think?

Forum discussion at Twitter.

Update: At around 1pm EST, the Google Play store, which is where Google links to for the full lyrics, removed the lyrics from their site. Google may drop them as well:

click for full size

Update #2: At around 4pm EST, the lyrics from the Google search results page has been removed.

Update #3: The lyrics are back, they are now correct and listed without comments or typos. Google has still not responded to my questions around this story.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Follow

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Google Ads

Google Ads Posted Zero New Feature Announcements In March 2024

Mar 29, 2024 - 7:51 am
Google Search Engine Optimization

Correction: Web Stories Still Show In Google Images & Google Fixes Search Console Reporting Bug

Mar 29, 2024 - 7:41 am
Google Maps

Google Business Profiles New Add Amenity To Your Website

Mar 29, 2024 - 7:31 am
Web Analytics

New Microsoft Copilot Referrer Data In Google Analytics

Mar 29, 2024 - 7:21 am
Google

Google Search Recommendation For "Google Can Help You Stand Out"

Mar 29, 2024 - 7:11 am
Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: March 28, 2024

Mar 28, 2024 - 4:00 pm
Previous Story: Google Project Fi Phone LEGO Stands & Chargers