Google is about to make finding lyrics to your favourite songs way more convenient and probably put a lot of lyrics websites out of business in the process. The company will soon begin displaying song lyrics in search results.

As The Next Web reports, Google have secured a deal with Toronto company LyricFind, who will serve lyrics direct to users when they’re searched for, much like weather or basic Wikipedia information is now displayed when other terms are searched.

It’s already had its debut in the US and is set to roll out globally soon, with US users able to look up lyrics to any song in LyricFind’s database by searching for the name of the song followed by ‘lyrics’.

It’s a huge boon for LyricFind, whose co-founder told Billboard he expects the partnership to be “a significant revenue stream”, estimating there will be “millions of dollars generated for publishers and songwriters as a result of this”.

“It’s all based on usage,” co-founder Darryl Ballantyne said. “Royalties are paid based on the number of times a lyric is viewed. The more it’s viewed, the more publishers get paid.” But other lyrics websites, such as AZLyrics, will likely see their revenues dip.

Most lyrics databases operate without licenses and rely on Google to drive traffic to their pages. Google famously punished popular lyrics site Genius after they were found to be employing unethical search engine optimisation tactics to put them at the top of search results.

But whilst Genius set themselves apart from the rest of the pack with their annotation features and a partnership with Spotify that displays Genius’ lyrics within the Spotify app, other lyrics websites are likely to struggle.

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