YouTube Music begins limiting lyrics without spending a dime customers

YouTube Music has began placing lyrics — a beforehand free characteristic introduced in 2020 — behind a paywall, in accordance with a number of users and 9to5Google. Within the newest replace, the “Lyrics” tab within the Now Enjoying display screen shows a warning message: “You’ve gotten [x] views remaining. Unlock lyrics with Premium.” Free customers get lyrics for 5 songs, then after that, will solely see a couple of traces earlier than the remainder of the tune is blurred.

Google has been testing the characteristic since no less than September with a restricted variety of customers, in accordance with previous reports. It’s been speculated that YouTube might have made the change to recuperate prices spent with lyric aggregators like Musixmatch. Spotify additionally put lyrics behind its Premium paywall in 2024, however a person backlash compelled it to reinstate the feature without spending a dime customers.

Google has but to verify the change, and whereas it seems to be a bigger rollout, the characteristic change may nonetheless be in testing. YouTube Music’s Premium subscription prices $10.99 within the US with ad-free playback, offline downloads, AI options and extra — the identical as its predominant rivals Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.