You must log in or register to comment.
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.
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
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.
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.Oh almost certainly. I have ADHD, prolly autistic, and I’ve had many times where my mind stopped processing what people are saying. Which is bad when you work tourism xD
Yyuup. It’s bad in basically any job you have to listen to people during, and I always have to establish with friends that it is an honest mistake when I can’t understand them and/or spaced out.
I’m ADHD and on the spectrum more than likely, and my therapist says that the cutting edge research pertaining to this is leaning towards combining ADHD and ASD into one conglomerate of symptoms because they overlap more often than not.
For me it is certain singers that apparently everyone else understands but I cannot without knowing the words ahead of time. Not just mumbling, some voices just don’t register clearly for me if I don’t know what they are saying.
It can depend on the mixing, too. Not just in regards to volume, but also in how the vocals are edited. My recent obsession has been Dusk at Cubist Castle, shit’s absolutely amazing. The way a lot of the vocals are mixed and processed are super cool, like layering the same lines over themselves five times over with subtle delays and panning, it sounds real cool! But it makes it sound a lot more distant to me as a result.
Yeah, thst is true. But I’m talking about some popular artists like Pearl Jam and Mase who everyone around me apparently could hear clear as day but I just heard mumble mush at first and could only hear the words clearly with printed lyrics in front of me.
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
Is that you, Helen?
Seems like they could just Google the lyrics and read that.
But I guess Spotify lyrics do give an idea on the pace of the song.
Wow, that’s hot trash. Imagine subtitles on movies and TV being stuck behind a paywall.
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
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.
You don’t need lyrics to listen to music however. If she’s deaf and can’t hear the music then I don’t know why she needs Spotify.
Much like many disabilities, deafness isn’t a hard binary between hearing Vs deaf, but a spectrum dependent on many factors. For example, someone may have hearing loss in a particular frequency range, which may affect their ability to hear lyrics. I would also expect that someone’s relationship to music may be impacted by whether they were born deaf or acquired deafness later in life.
The point that other are making about this as an accessibility problem is that a lot of disability or anti-discrimination has provisions for rules or policies that are, in and of themselves, neutral, but affect disabled people (or other groups protected under equality legislation) to a greater degree than people without that trait. In the UK, for example, it might be considered “indirect discrimination”.
You might not need lyrics to listen to music, but someone who is deaf or hard of hearing is likely going to experience and enjoy music differently to you, so it may well be necessary for them.
I don’t even know the lyrics to some of my favorite songs. I think the whole complaining about unlimited, free lyrics is ridiculous. Spotify isn’t a charity and just because someone can’t enjoy music as much due to not reading lyrics isn’t an accessibility thing.
Guess Spotify should just get rid of the free tier and then this wouldn’t even be an issue.
Spotify isn’t a charity
Ohh, they’re trying to be a shit-hole. Now I understand.
You guys, there’s a reason we don’t clean toilets. Toilets are supposed to be dirty.
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!
Do radio stations provide lyrics?
Some do. It’s pretty rare, but stations that are more talk-show or interview style shows might have transcripts on their site afterwards. (The Final Straw Radio, my beloved)
Music stations? Probably not. At least I’m not aware of any that do. But I also don’t like hearing the disk jockey chat between music so I don’t listen to that type of radio ever.
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.
Or borrow CDs from friends or the library. Or turn on the fucking radio. There’s plenty of music for free out there.
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. 😂
Being deaf is a spectrum. There are plenty of people who still have some hearing, and are “hard of hearing”. There’s deaf people who can enjoy music through the use of hearing aids as well. There’s also totally deaf people who can enjoy music because of the vibrations. There’s people whose hearing is just bad enough that they don’t understand what anyone is saying without subtitles/lyrics. Deaf in only one ear, etc.
I’m so confused by people under this post defending a company’s scheme to make more money that disproportionately affects disabled people.
I pay for spoofie premium because it’s convenient
But I’m not defending this money-grubbing behavior
Agreed.
I spent the last month converting all of my Spotify likes to MP3 files and ended my subscription in Mid-June.
Their greedy, shrinkflating, enshittifying asshole CEO can go fuck himself.
How would one go about this? So I can avoid doing it accidentally, of course.
Well, I’m not advising that you do this, but I’ve read that there are tools on the Internet for converting Youtube links into MP3 files, and even better, I’ve read that the quality is a jump up from what Spotify streams to your device.
Interesting reading.
I killed my Spotify account when they started shoveling millions of dollars at Joe Rogan, and everything they’ve done since then only confirms I made the right call.
I may have to try that again: at the time I got too many complaints from my kids. Now Spotify hugely increased prices, probably to pay for its attempt to collect Podcasts that I’m not interested in.
Unfortunately I agreed with my kids: other music services just don’t works as well
Tidal has been pretty good for me over the past 5 years. I don’t know what your criteria are, but for me it’s something like 1) is the catalog big enough to offer 90% of what I’m looking for and 2) no advertising if I’m paying for the service. It ticks those boxes. I imagine it’s only a matter of time until they introduce the bullshit tier where you’re paying and being advertised to, but for now you get what you pay for.
I’m a bit confused. Do deaf people listen to music? Lyrics are generally freely available via Google.
Edit: see reply for a good explanation.
Deafness covers a broad spectrum of hearing difficulty, not just completely deaf. Most people that identify as deaf still have some hearing. I always forget that and had the same question as you until I read a comment further down.
It’s likely that the person isn’t fully deaf and so can still hear some music, but deaf enough that they can’t understand the lyrics. Having the ability to view the lyrics in real time is handy rather than having to search them up all the time. Spotify also shows what lyric is currently being sung in real time, whereas you can’t get that with a Google search.
I didn’t even know they did that, Glad I don’t have an account with them. I’m partially deaf, most music I can’t understand what someone singing. Those fun things people do of like “most common misheard lyrics” is basically my life. On the plus side I enjoy music from around the world because unintelligible music is unintelligible no matter where it’s from. They’re very few artists I feel like I can understand, and realistically I’m probably wrong.
In real life, I read lips to help augment my terrible hearing. Fun fact during the mask man dates during COVID, was probably the worst time for me. A lot of people I could hear talking as I could hear noise but I could not make out what it was. Leading to a lot of awkward conversations.
Anyhoo, that’s all to say that for music that I do like I do have to see the lyrics. It’s what converts the noise into words.
So, fuck you Spotify, My life’s difficult enough already, I’m not paying your shitty service so you can charge me for my impairment.
damn thats crazy, i’m out here with my 300GB collection of music that i own and control and i can just, add lyrics to shit if i want to.
I don’t because i’m not deaf and i don’t really care for lyrics all that much, but it’s also just, automated.
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.
I don’t get it. They are complaning that their limited free plan is limited?
They’re complaining that the limited, free-tier plan is worse than it used to be. And really, for no good reason.
When EA releases Star Wars 2: A Sense Of Pride And Accomplishment, we complain about how stupid that is, do we not?
for no good reason
Hosting costs a lot of money
And they run ads. The free-tier is not actually free, you know.
The 1 or 2 kB of lyrics are a few orders of magnitude smaller than the song being streamed.
The album art probably takes up more space than the lyrics.
So, album art should also be a paid feature?Album art would make way more sense as a paid feature than lyrics, considering it’s a largely cosmetic improvement.
They’re complaining that one of the things the limited free plan takes away is something they were using to accommodate their disability.
If you want Spotify for free and lyrics for free, just Google the lyrics…
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!
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.
This is just some nerd looking to be angry.
