YouTube Music is Making Song Lyrics a Premium Feature

YouTube Music appears to be rolling out a change that puts song lyrics behind a paywall. 9to5Google reports that the platform has been testing the new restriction in recent months, and more users are now starting to see it.

If you use YouTube Music without a Premium subscription and try to access song lyrics on mobile, you may see a new pop-up window showing that you only have a limited number of lyrics views (up to 5) remaining. The message also says that you can unlock unlimited access to lyrics with a Premium subscription.

I tried checking song lyrics with a free YouTube Music account, but I’m not seeing this message yet, so your mileage may vary. Anyway, this is a strange restriction to enforce when YouTube doesn’t require paying to see automated captions for videos. The platform even started offering auto dubs for free.

The YouTube team announced nearly a year ago that it had crossed 125 million YouTube Music and Premium subscribers globally, which is far behind Spotify and its 281 million paying subscribers. In the US, YouTube Music Premium is priced at $10.99/month, which is cheaper than Spotify Premium ($12.99/month). However, you can get even more value by subscribing to YouTube Premium ($13.99/month), which includes YouTube Music Premium and unlocks ad-free listening, background listening on mobile, and offline downloads for YouTube videos.