Genius hid Morse code in song lyrics to prove Google was copying

https://nypost.com/2019/06/17/genius-hid-morse-code-in-song-lyrics-to-prove-google-was-cheating/

by Anon84 • 7 years ago

39 10 7 years ago

notinversed• 7 years ago

It's disconcerting to see Google hiding behind the "just a partner/contractor" for literally every horrible thing they do now.

You did it. You own all the worlds info. Congrats. Stop pretending like you don't.

kreetx• 7 years ago

The issue might actually be that they didn't know. It's on the accuser to prove their part (which, it seems, they now have?).

It's not all that easy to verify supply chains. So, say two parties have exactly the same lyrics for a song, must one of them be copy of snother?

d33373• 7 years ago

What the company did to catch Google was to watermark lyrics with the help of apostrophes. By alternating between straight and curly single-quote marks in exactly the same sequence for every song. When turned into dots and dashes, the apostrophes spell the words Red Handed, which is a smart trick.

Smart!

CobrastanJorji• 7 years ago

It's a really cool approach, no doubt. Map makers solve the problem using "Trap streets," which are small, fake streets that don't really exist, which would demonstrate that you blindly copied their map if your map also contains it. But for song lyrics, it's not really an option to add fake lines to the song. Using different apostrophe styles is really smart.

hawaiian• 7 years ago

You could even say it was genius.

ceejayoz• 7 years ago

Discussed (at length!) yesterday. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20194952

jedberg• 7 years ago

FWIW a lot of people read HN Mon-Fri while at work, so it's not surprising that this was missed by many yesterday.

m3kw9• 7 years ago

Lawsuit and settlement coming up

anonu• 7 years ago

The NYPost article is a bit light on details. The WSJ article mentioned explains more:

Starting around 2016, Genius said, the company made a subtle change to some of the songs on its website, alternating the lyrics’ apostrophes between straight and curly single-quote marks in exactly the same sequence for every song.
When the two types of apostrophes were converted to the dots and dashes used in Morse code, they spelled out the words “Red Handed.”

RickJWagner• 7 years ago

Wow. Nice sting.