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While I agree that this is stupid, why would a deaf person be using Spotify in the first place?
Deafness isn’t binary, they could be capable of hearing the music but not making out the lyrics.
And even people who cannot hear anything at all still feel the bass and stuff.
Relevant funny story from Deaf actor Daniel Durant: https://youtube.com/shorts/eYQKtwkoZOI
hissss!!!
As someone who is not deaf, this was a really helpful comment to help me understand, thank you.
To everyone else reading down here, lot of people also don’t really get this same idea with visual impairment and other handicaps.
There are a lot of people who are legally blind, but that just means they can’t make out things at certain distances, and these are why we need things like high-visibility curbs and street markers and large-type text options and other accessibility features that able-bodied people in a wide field of industries often forget about and just assume either people are blind and won’t be using their products, or will have perfect vision. When really there are far more people who are considered deaf or blind who can still enjoy many of the same things as someone with fully faculties and just need a little extra help.
I am only typing this out because we seem to entering a strange time in the developed world where more and more people are withdrawing from the social contract and not extending compassion towards others, particularly those with special needs.
When I was little I thought the future would be a bright and remarkable place where people took care of each other, because those were the messages you see on PBS shows like Mr Rogers and Sesame Street. Turns out, a LOT of people didn’t watch those shows.
Wait, are you supposed to be able to make out the lyrics?
Excuse me while I kiss this guy!
Makes sense!
Just to clarify definitions that probably wouldn’t be considered deafness, it would be an audio processing disorder. Ability to hear music but inability to process the words.
Deafness is “binary” in that it just means ones ability to hear sound or not. If you can hear sound even slightly then you just have a hearing impairment and are not deaf.
Deafness is commonly understood to include both total and partial hearing loss. Every major dictionary defines it this way. It might have a more precise meaning in some spheres (medical, etc), but in common English it is not binary the way you’re suggesting.
Similar to blindness which also isn’t an absolute yes or no. People can be blind and still see colors and shapes, but not enough to be able to tell what they are.
No it really isn’t. The hard of hearing are considered deaf. There’s complete deafness, much like there’s complete blindness, but the fact that you’re calling it hearing impairment instead of hard of hearing indicates you aren’t as well versed in Deafness (not to be confused with deafness) as you think
So I’m not deaf, not in the slightest, but I struggle to understand lyrics in music. I love music, I live and breathe it and I’m gonna dedicate my life to it, but I’ve always struggled with understanding lyrics in music. To me, the vocalist is just another instrument in the mix. Having lyrics to read helps me appreciate my favorite tunes more!
You might have a smidge of
SpeechAuditory* Processing Disorder. I do and that’s what it’s like for me. Common comorbidity with ADHD and ASD, and possibly other neurotypes.
Long shot guess: deaf person can “listen” to vibrations of music with their hands on a speaker but this is not possible with lyrics?
So imagine you’re listening to rap. But you’re hard of hearing. The beats still slap, but the words aren’t intelligible. Hell the beats are even better because you got a subwoofer that shakes the floor. But you know it’s poetry, it’s about the words as much as the beats. So of course you’d want to read along
If it were a paid account yeah, it’d be extremely shitty. But seeing as it’s a free account, it’s their prerogative to try and get people to pay for the service. Besides, I don’t get this entitlement that spotify has to provide music for free. They’re a (admittedly greedy) middle-man that wants to get paid. If one wants free music and everything, well, time to self-host.
it’s their prerogative to try and get people to pay for the service.
Except that this attempt could easily be shown to largely land on folks with accessibility needs. That’s a big no-no under many laws.
An interesting comparison is pay-to-ride elevators. For most folks an elevator is a nice convenience they would not mind occasionally paying for.
But for some folks, the elevator is completely essential. This dynamic resulted in making pay-to-ride elevators illegal in most places, today.
Due to the uniquely fucked up way music licensing works, it’s likely they license the lyrics through a separate company than the music and probably don’t even directly license it themselves (Tidal for example uses Musicmatch’s lyric library and api). There’s a cost associated with this that is likely outside their control. It’s shitty, but it is plalusibly reasonable they implemented this as a cost savings measure.
That’s a good point. That might actually make the case for “undue burden”.
A court case about it could be a way for Spotify to pass the problem to their licensors, in theory.
You keep claiming this “undue burden”, can you provide a source to the exemption in the legislation that states this is possible? Multiple people have asked and you keep just screaming at them.
Prove your point or kindly fuck off and stop making the most obvious fucking lies.
employer
Is Spotify an employer to their customers…?
Radio to the general public?
An elevator in a building…?
Did you do what they did and google something and read the first two lines only….?
You asked simply what they were referring to, ya fucking dick. I gave you an answer.
But seeing as it’s a free account, it’s their prerogative
Oh, so not charging money magically exempts companies from meeting ADA accessibility requirements for their public accommodations?
Edit: what I’m taking issue with is the notion that being on the free tier of service changes anything. Maybe Spotifiy has an obligation or maybe it doesn’t, but either way, it’s the same regardless of how much or little the customer pays. Being a second-class customer does not make you a second-class citizen who doesn’t get equal protection under the law!
ADA accessibility requirements for their public accommodations
Source that providing lyrics to songs is a requirement?
Providing a substantially inferior outcome to someone with an ADA need absolutely violates ADA rules.
When stuff like this has gone to court it hasn’t been pretty for the offending organization.
There’s a bigger question about how much of what Spotify currently provides falls under ADA. Web services used to get a free pass. They largely don’t anymore.
Source: some of this stuff is my problem, professionally. And no, I’m not going to look up a primary source for anyone. That’s Spotify’s lawyers job.
So no, just talking out of your ass then.
You can Google the lyrics to songs on any device you can view them on Spotify.
If you could google the subtitles to any film or tv show, should that absolve Netflix of the responsibility to provide them?
Do lyrics fall under the same regulation as subtitles? If Netflix were free, would it still be subject to those requirements?
Perhaps they should. Let’s join hands, friend. I believe we can change things for the better.
I guess deaf people aren’t allowed to enjoy music like the rest of y’all.
I’m so sorry but this is the absolute funniest shit I have ever read. 😂
I might get a bit of hate for this considering the community name, but Spotify is the one subscription I pay for and don’t feel like I’m getting ripped off. Basically every song I want is on there, they very rarely remove content, and the algorithm actually comes up with decent recommendations. I even like some of the other random features like Spotify wrapped.
But the main difference I see vs other subscriptions is that I don’t feel locked in, since there are no Spotify originals etc if they ever make the service too shit (which admittedly they might since they keep raising the price and trying to shove podcasts down everyone’s throat) I could easily switch to a different streaming service or even go back to just buying music outright
Wow, that’s hot trash. Imagine subtitles on movies and TV being stuck behind a paywall.
This one is actually out of their hands. Lyrics aren’t free sadly and they have to pay for API calls. It’s fucking stupid but the labels are the ones at fault here.
Fuck Spotify nonetheless.
Unless there’s some agreement / licensing thing prohibiting it, and considering that lyrics don’t change, they should be able to do some caching for a total of 1 API call per song
Not sure why you got downvoted… storing text isn’t a lot of data, they can easily do it once per song and wrap it up.
The issue isn’t the storage, it’s the copyright holders
It is not a copyright infringement to display lyrics.
It very much is and Spotify would definitely get sued if they weren’t paying. I got a cease and desist for an app I made about a decade ago for this very thing
This is just some nerd looking to be angry.
If you want Spotify for free and lyrics for free, just Google the lyrics…
While I mostly agree, there is a difference. In Spotify, you can play a song and it highlights the lyrics as they are sung
Not always, only if they’re synced.
fuck off, it’s not that simple. Spotify you can’t just play whatever and also you can skip like 5 songs per hour or whatever the fuck. Charging for lyrics is fucking ridiculous and you saying just google it isn’t any better.
Spotify you can’t just play whatever and also you can skip like 5 songs per hour or whatever the fuck.
Okay? That has literally nothing to do with getting lyrics for free…
Charging for lyrics is fucking ridiculous and you saying just google it isn’t any better.
The people are entitled to their free music and free lyrics right in the same spot. Having to do a single Google search to get those lyrics is inconceivable!
