Google has consistently maintained it does not scrape other websites for their data. “We do not crawl or scrape websites to source these lyrics,” Google said in a blog post before Genius sued the company. “The lyrics that you see in information boxes on Search come directly from lyrics content providers, and they are updated automatically as we receive new lyrics and corrections on a regular basis.” 

Despite the legal win, the issue is unlikely to go away. As The Verge points out, the topic of Google scraping data from its competitors is something that came up during the recent antitrust hearing the company took part in last month. Another company that has accused Google of stealing its data is Yelp. In one of the more heated exchanges during the panel, lawmaker David Cicilline questioned Google CEO Sundar Pichai about Yelp. Touching on Yelp’s complaints, he asked the executive if he thought Google had acted in a way that was anti-competitive toward the company. “When I run the company, I’m really focused on giving users what they want,” Pichai said. “We conduct ourselves to the highest standard.”

How can Genius be sure of this? It says it developed a unique “watermark” — alternating styles of apostrophes that spelled out “red handed” in Morse Code. Thanks to this evidence, it’s now suing the search giant over what it calls “anticompetitive behavior” and is seeking $50 million in combined minimum damages.

In response to the first allegations of copying, Google published a blog post that said, “We do not crawl or scrape websites to source these lyrics. The lyrics that you see in information boxes on Search come directly from lyrics content providers, and they are updated automatically as we receive new lyrics and corrections on a regular basis.” Speaking to Gizmodo back in June, however, Genius’ chief strategy officer Ben Gross said, “[Google] have known about this for two years and it’s clearly unfair and anticompetitive.”

In the broader defense, Google maintained that ts workers “do not crawl or scrape” sites to grab lyrics, instead licensing the text from outsiders. They’re automatically updated whenever there are new lyrics or corrections, Google added.

LyricFind, a key supplier for Google’s lyrics, recently maintained that it didn’t source verses from Genius and even ruled it out as a lyrics source as a “courtesy.” The allegedly copied lyrics were available on “many other lyric sites,” the company argued. As such, LyricFind may have inadvertently grabbed lyrics from another company that was using Genius’ lyrics without permission.

The disclosures and the response won’t necessarily calm nerves at Genius’ offices. However, they do illustrate the messiness of lyrics search. There’s a chain of companies involved in putting those words on your screen, and it’s not always easy to see who’s being honest.

Google denied anything sinister in a statement to the Wall Street Journal. The company takes copyright “very seriously” and held its sourcing partners “accountable” for honoring the terms to its agreements — it doesn’t create the panels themselves. A key source for song info, LyricFind, told the WSJ that its staff “do not source” lyrics from Genius. Neither Google nor LyricFind has directly addressed the apparent match with some of Genius’ lyrics.

There haven’t been formal actions yet, but Genius has alleged that Google was both violating antitrust law and its terms of service. It said it alerted Google to the reported misuse as soon as 2017. Genius might not have much success if it pursues a case directly, since it doesn’t own the lyrics — it’s just allowed to display them.

Whether or not Genius’ complaint has merit, it’s coming at a bad time for Google. The internet pioneer is still grappling with the European Union’s successful antitrust cases, and there are murmurs of the US Justice Department readying an antitrust investigation. This could compound the situation by suggesting possible anti-competitive behavior in another area.