The lyric-annotation site Genius is suing Google and lyric-licensing service LyricFind for $50 million, alleging that Google and LyricFind were “caught red-handed misappropriating content from Genius’s website,” according to the court filing. This may all sound like normal legal jargon, but Genius means “caught red-handed” literally. Their watermark, which is applied to all of their content, makes the apostrophes in their lyrics alternate between straight and curly single-quote marks. In a delightful, Agatha Christie–like twist, when converted to Morse code, the apostrophes spell out “red handed.” According to Genius, they confronted both Google and LyricFind about the lyric stealing, but neither company chose to do anything. In response to initial allegations, LyricFind executive Darryl Ballantyne said, “We do not source lyrics from Genius.” The proof is in the Morse code, Darryl.
