If you love following along with the lyrics on Spotify, belting out the classics karaoke-style, then it’s going to start costing some of you.
Spotify is preparing to put its live lyrics feature behind the Premium subscription paywall, judging by screenshots posted by Spotify users on Reddit.
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Those using the free version of the audio streaming app are being told they can “enjoy lyrics on Premium” when attempting to access the tuneful prose from the playback interface. Spotify began testing this feature last autumn, but it now appears to be rolling out to a broader user base.
The change would enhance the value for Premium subscribers over their free-streaming counterparts and Spotify will hope to encourage some free users to upgrade to the paid tier as a result.
However, it may not be a complete ban on reading the lyrics for free users. It appears Spotify will allow a limited number of song sheets for each user per month.
A screenshot posted to Reddit (via PhoneArena) reads: “Even time you tap “Show lyrics”, it will count towards your limit. To get full access to lyrics, switch to Spotify Premium.” The screenshot doesn’t say how many times you can see lyrics per month.
Naturally, it’s being complained about heartily from the Spotify Free community which probably doesn’t realise artists are human beings who need to eat, and they can make money from allowing their music to be streamed on Spotify.
Spotify Premium offers unlimited access to the entire music library, ad-free with unlimited skips and linear playback. There’s also access to the highest quality bitrate and the opportunity to download music for offline listening.
It also gives users up to 15-hours a month of access to the Audiobooks library as part of their monthly dues. It seems like unmetered access to lyrics is about to become the latest.
