5 ms·

Can someone clarify for me, again, what is so special about Rap Genius? It's just a bunch of stupid rap lyrics. So what? In fact, how are they not being sued fo

by pstack 13y ago

Can someone clarify for me, again, what is so special about Rap Genius? It's just a bunch of stupid rap lyrics. So what? In fact, how are they not being sued for copyright by the owners of all the lyrics they're posting, anyway? I run across Rap Genius now and then and have always considered it to be spam, just like yahoo answers, ehow, and mahalo pages.

citricsquid 13y ago
http://news.rapgenius.com/Marc-andreessen-why-andreessen-horowitz-is-investing-in-rap-genius-lyrics http://news.rapgenius.com/Marc-andreessen-why-andreessen-hor... Rap Genius [...] and have always considered it to be spam That's pretty absurd...
ScottWhigham 13y ago
Can someone clarify for me, again, what is so special about Rap Genius? Why? You've no doubt read 10x reasons people here have said so (in the other threads). Do you just want to argue? If you don't agree, fine, but clearly a large and vocal group does. So what? Move along - find other things to care about.
streptomycin 13y ago
In fact, how are they not being sued for copyright by the owners of all the lyrics they're posting, anyway? They have had some legal troubles, but are trying to sign licensing deals http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/business/media/rap-genius-says-it-will-seek-licenses-for-lyrics.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/business/media/rap-genius-... However, if their licensing deals are anything like what other sites have to pay for lyrics, it's going to significantly (entirely?) cut into their profit margin.
holyjaw 13y ago
Sorry to say, but your assessment of the site is 100% incorrect. It STARTED as a Rap Lyrics website, but it quickly expanded to be an ANY lyrics website (and they will probably expand beyond that) The main driving force behind it is that anyone can edit the lyrics, and even better, anyone can ANNOTATE the lyrics to explain what certain sections mean. Let's take for example the lyrics for Mumford & Sons' "The Cave": http://rock.rapgenius.com/Mumford-and-sons-the-cave-lyrics http://rock.rapgenius.com/Mumford-and-sons-the-cave-lyrics I looked up this song one day trying to understand more of the allusions made in the song; I know the title itself alludes to Plato's 'The Cave' and wanted to delve deeper. Because of this site, I can see that Verse 3: > So come out of your cave walking on your hands > And see the world hanging upside down > You can understand dependence > When you know the maker's hand is an allusion to St. Francis. Most of the time when Rap Genius ISN'T the top result for lyrics when I google, I facepalm and go directly to their site. I should emphasize here that this overly positive post isn't intended to condone their shady, spammy blackhat SEO tactics, but damnit if they aren't the BEST lyrics site by a fair margin.
- PavlovsCat 13y ago
  > even better, anyone can ANNOTATE the lyrics to explain what certain sections mean. Maybe I looked at the wrong lyrics, but I saw precious few explanations, instead most lines had jokes and/or totally unrelated pictures attached to them. Often enough the jokes is to simply restate what was said in rapper slang in plain english, which is funny for exactly the first time you read it, then it's just spam.
- pstack 13y ago
  All I know is that they somehow come up in my google results fairly often and usually unrelated to the context of my intended search and it always felt like it was SEO'd junk crapping up my results. I added them to my google filter to keep them from showing up in my searches anymore, along with all the inane commentary from their community discussion underneath each song.
badman_ting 13y ago
If you think Rap Genius is stupid try using any other lyrics site. That's what is so special about it. Is anyone else getting more and more suspicious of the scorn that people have been gratuitously heaping on RG? Like, did they run over everyone's dog?
- nhangen 13y ago
  I actually avoid using them because the design is hard on the eyes and I find the way they present annotations to be annoying. I don't think there's anything special about them at all, especially when you consider that the idea is completely unoriginal.
- pstack 13y ago
  But I'm not trying to use any lyrics site. Rap Genius garbage just always popped up on my (to me)-unrelated searches. People can respond to me with how they're not spam or they're not as spammy as other lyrics sites, but the point is that they pop up in the same frequency and same context as every other link-farm/content-mining crap-fest on the internet, like ehow, cha-cha, yahoo answers, mahalo, paidcontent, and so on.

by pstack 13y ago

citricsquid 13y ago

http://news.rapgenius.com/Marc-andreessen-why-andreessen-horowitz-is-investing-in-rap-genius-lyrics http://news.rapgenius.com/Marc-andreessen-why-andreessen-hor... Rap Genius [...] and have always considered it to be spam That's pretty absurd...

ScottWhigham 13y ago

Can someone clarify for me, again, what is so special about Rap Genius? Why? You've no doubt read 10x reasons people here have said so (in the other threads). Do you just want to argue? If you don't agree, fine, but clearly a large and vocal group does. So what? Move along - find other things to care about.

streptomycin 13y ago

In fact, how are they not being sued for copyright by the owners of all the lyrics they're posting, anyway? They have had some legal troubles, but are trying to sign licensing deals http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/business/media/rap-genius-says-it-will-seek-licenses-for-lyrics.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/15/business/media/rap-genius-... However, if their licensing deals are anything like what other sites have to pay for lyrics, it's going to significantly (entirely?) cut into their profit margin.

holyjaw 13y ago

Sorry to say, but your assessment of the site is 100% incorrect. It STARTED as a Rap Lyrics website, but it quickly expanded to be an ANY lyrics website (and they will probably expand beyond that) The main driving force behind it is that anyone can edit the lyrics, and even better, anyone can ANNOTATE the lyrics to explain what certain sections mean. Let's take for example the lyrics for Mumford & Sons' "The Cave": http://rock.rapgenius.com/Mumford-and-sons-the-cave-lyrics http://rock.rapgenius.com/Mumford-and-sons-the-cave-lyrics I looked up this song one day trying to understand more of the allusions made in the song; I know the title itself alludes to Plato's 'The Cave' and wanted to delve deeper. Because of this site, I can see that Verse 3: > So come out of your cave walking on your hands > And see the world hanging upside down > You can understand dependence > When you know the maker's hand is an allusion to St. Francis. Most of the time when Rap Genius ISN'T the top result for lyrics when I google, I facepalm and go directly to their site. I should emphasize here that this overly positive post isn't intended to condone their shady, spammy blackhat SEO tactics, but damnit if they aren't the BEST lyrics site by a fair margin.

PavlovsCat 13y ago
> even better, anyone can ANNOTATE the lyrics to explain what certain sections mean. Maybe I looked at the wrong lyrics, but I saw precious few explanations, instead most lines had jokes and/or totally unrelated pictures attached to them. Often enough the jokes is to simply restate what was said in rapper slang in plain english, which is funny for exactly the first time you read it, then it's just spam.
pstack 13y ago
All I know is that they somehow come up in my google results fairly often and usually unrelated to the context of my intended search and it always felt like it was SEO'd junk crapping up my results. I added them to my google filter to keep them from showing up in my searches anymore, along with all the inane commentary from their community discussion underneath each song.

badman_ting 13y ago

If you think Rap Genius is stupid try using any other lyrics site. That's what is so special about it. Is anyone else getting more and more suspicious of the scorn that people have been gratuitously heaping on RG? Like, did they run over everyone's dog?

nhangen 13y ago
I actually avoid using them because the design is hard on the eyes and I find the way they present annotations to be annoying. I don't think there's anything special about them at all, especially when you consider that the idea is completely unoriginal.
pstack 13y ago
But I'm not trying to use any lyrics site. Rap Genius garbage just always popped up on my (to me)-unrelated searches. People can respond to me with how they're not spam or they're not as spammy as other lyrics sites, but the point is that they pop up in the same frequency and same context as every other link-farm/content-mining crap-fest on the internet, like ehow, cha-cha, yahoo answers, mahalo, paidcontent, and so on.