[joshuaissac]

> whether an unauthorised derivative work is itself entitled to copyright protection

That is not what this court case was about. Genius had already settled the case of unauthorised transcriptions and had bought licences for its lyrics after a lawsuit 2014, so its own work was no longer unauthorised. In the case cited above, Genius was trying to enforce its claims against Google via contract law rather than copyright law. The court ruled that the alleged violations were covered by copyright law, so they could only pursued via copyright law, and that only the copyright holder (or assignee) of the lyrics that were copied could sue Google under it.