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.
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
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
I assume they are not paying for the lyrics, but for the access to the api. The lyrics are also timed to the music and the service they use might do that for them. So, like you say, serving lyrics data costs very little, but that is not what they pay for.
And to add, I don’t really know anything about how this works behind the scenes.
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
You and I can do that but they’re not just caching they’re redistributing which requires royalties
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
Surely the cost of lyrics (regardless of fetching API or royalties with caching) are miniscule compared to the other costs.
I assume they are not paying for the lyrics, but for the access to the api. The lyrics are also timed to the music and the service they use might do that for them. So, like you say, serving lyrics data costs very little, but that is not what they pay for.
And to add, I don’t really know anything about how this works behind the scenes.