Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

Didn't they get blacklisted from Google results for some sort of dark / spammy SEO scheme a while back? I assumed that was the death blow for these guys. Or did they somehow workout a deal that let them come back? I stopped keeping track.



I believe they did an encoding(Morse code or something) in the lyrics to prove google was using them verbatim.


There was also the whole thing where Google stole all their lyrics data to power Knowledge Graph without paying them. Hard to sustain a business when goliath steals all your crud.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/genius-we-caught-google-red-hande...

Then they lost the lawsuit to some nonsensical bull because technically the lyrics of someone else's song can't be copyrighted by them. But nonetheless, all the work they did had been stolen by the search engine people would normally use to find them. Hard to survive as a business in that environment.


Didn't they get accused of doing the same thing?

https://www.vice.com/en/article/6wnp4r/an-annotated-intervie...


Yeah, I remembered this as well. I always thought this is why they changed from rapgenius to genius

https://techcrunch.com/2013/12/25/google-rap-genius/




Consider applying for YC's Fall 2025 batch! Applications are open till Aug 4

Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: