YouTube Music begins limiting lyrics at no cost customers

YouTube Music has began placing lyrics — a beforehand free characteristic introduced in 2020 — behind a paywall, based on a number of users and 9to5Google. Within the newest replace, the “Lyrics” tab within the Now Enjoying display shows a warning message: “You’ve got [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 music is blurred.

Google has been testing the characteristic since no less than September with a restricted variety of customers, based on 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 pressured it to reinstate the feature at no cost customers.

Google has but to verify the change, and whereas it seems to be a bigger rollout, the characteristic change might 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 essential rivals Spotify, Apple Music and Amazon Music.