The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit Thursday ruled in favor of Alphabet Inc.’s Google in a suit filed by Genius alleging unfair competition and breach of contract pertaining to the misuse of Genius’s transcribed lyrics in its search engine. The lawsuit claims that Google used Genius’s song lyrics transcriptions in its search results without permission and attribution.
The three-judge bench of the Second Circuit affirmed a lower court decision which ruled that § 301 of the Copyright Act statutorily preempted any unfair competition and breach of contract claims advanced by Genius. On the issue of Genius’s unfair competition claims, the Court noted that Genius’s allegations of misappropriation of content and subsequent engagement in deceptive behavior were inadequate to avoid statutory preemption under the Copyright Act. The bench ruled:
At bottom, the “gravamen” of Genius’s claim is Defendants’ “unauthorized publication” of its lyrics transcriptions, so Genius’s unfair competition claims are preempted.
With regard to tb breach of contract claims, the Second Circuit held that Genuis’s claims were not qualitatively different from a standard copyright claim so as to avoid statutory preemption. The Court observed:
To be sure, we do not hold that breach of contract claims concerning copyrighted material are never preempted. We hold only that given the specific facts Genius pleaded in its complaint, its breach of contract claim is not qualitatively different from a copyright claim and is therefore preempted.
The Second Circuit also rejected Genius’s “hot news” exemption from copyright preemption, noting that claims advanced by Genius did not qualify for such exception as it had failed to demonstrate that its transcriptions constitute time-sensitive information.
LyricFind was also a defendant party in the said proceedings.
