Skip Navigation

Piracy: ꜱᴀɪʟ ᴛʜᴇ ʜɪɢʜ ꜱᴇᴀꜱ @lemmy.dbzer0.com

Bloodyashes @lemm.ee

1y ago

Now you have to pay to see lyrics on spotify

222 comments

I’ve never used the free tier on Spotify and I don’t understand how anyone can. The ads alone would make me throw off my headset in disgust. So yeah, not going to affect me, and I do enjoy reading the lyrics a lot.
That said, I am experimenting with swapping over to Apple Music because I feel Spotify has become too expensive.
- The ads alone would make me throw off my headset in disgust.
  For a mobile, there is a modded apk,I've never heard ads there. For a PC, web player in Firefox with uBlock Origin, there are no ads at all there. The same goes for Tidal, I've never paid for these apps.
  
  https://lemmy.ml/comment/3223099 For both PC and Android.
  
  Doesn't solve the offline mode/taking a 13 hour flight use case, unfortunately.
  
  I use an iPhone though and I’d prefer not to use YouTube for music, or anything, really.
- With xManager, the free tier comes quite close to premium. No ads, play whatever music you like. The only issues are lower sound quality & no downloads, which are really non-issues since you can just find other sources to download the music from, at flac quality
- The ads aren't even for anything. It was just really patronising ads for Spotify Premium.
  Their business model is genuinely to just annoy you into paying.
  
  It only annoyed me into stopping using their service
- Spotify gives me ads and when I complain they tell me they're not ads and that they're offers lol. My only complaint.
- I recently flipped to apple music and apart from seeing a few songs missing on albums i don’t really listen to anyway, it’s only been an improvement. the lossless audio is quite nice

I just love watching everyone freak out about Spotify's shitty business practices while I'm casually looping YouTube videos with an adblocker.
- Eh, I switched to Spotify last year (++, of course) and there’s a lot to be said in favour of the Spotify algorithm when it comes to music recommendations, as opposed to YouTube.
  
  This. You get actual bang for your buck
  
  I have gotten good recommendations from both but of course Spotify more often
  
  Spotify algorithm pushes artists that pay them to push them to you. Get your recommendations via more organic means if you can. That means blogs, real people. Screw the spotify recommendation slop (and I say this as someone who has spotify premium.)
- YouTube sound quality is poor, and 99% of your bandwidth being devoted to video is wasteful. Just use SoundCloud or something. Better yet revanced patched YT music or xmanager Spotify.
  Edit: or better yet vimusic
  
  I finally got a sub to Apple Music when I learned I get lossless by default. Yummmmmm.
  I still hoard flacs, but Apple Music is dope.
  
  YouTube's sound quality is comparable to Spotify's - IIRC it's 128kbps AAC versus 160kbps MP3. Also, a static video's bitrate is around 300-400kbps, so you're not wasting that much bandwidth
- There are some add-ons that turn off the video to avoid wasting energy.
  
  But they still waste the bandwidth. The YouTube music either premium or revanced is still the "most economical" way.
- ublock origin blocks spotify ads well. I have found a lot of new artists using spotify, I avoided it for a pretty long time. When I find artists I like I usually buy their stuff on bandcamp cause i can get flacs

To be fair, Spotify is unsuable without premium.
- Spotify is unusable without ~~premium~~ Xmanager
- Is what someone would say if they didn't know any better.
  
  Using Spotify without premium, as Spotify offers it, is unusable. There might be other options than paying, but the vanilla Spotify experience is horrendous

It does make sense though since Spotify has to pay musixmatch for the service.
- who crowdsource a heap of their lyrics, paying a pittance to their curators 🙄
  
  That's true. But to be fair, I have added one song and synced a few. I didn't do it because I wanted pay, I did it because I wanted the song's lyrics to be on Spotify and on the app.
  They built a service and people seem to like it, so I don't mind.

As a Spotify Artist, I bet I don't even see a single hundredth of a penny for somebody paying extra for the lyrics, either...
And even if Spotify did pay out extra for lyrics, I'm sure they'd find a way to screw my band out of royalties like they currently are anyway.

Rent seeking intensifies

Even then you might not see them. I've noticed recently that a ton of songs that used to have the lyrics attached no longer show the lyrics or have the button to show them. And I do have premium.
- I noticed that as well, and I, too, have premium
  
  Meanwhile, I'm sitting here with my pirated apk and I can still see all the lyrics 😂

Music is one of the easiest things to pirate, so much so that I often forget me downloading flacs of the songs I listen to is supposed to be a no-no
Between a flac playing app (Musicolet on Android and MusicBee on PC) as well as YT Music Revanced, things go smoothly
- The only reason I don't pirate music is because of discovery. I haven't found a good way to find new music without using a streaming service. And then, I'm already using a streaming service, so why bother.
  
  This. Back when I was a spring chicken I had nothing better to do with my time than download random songs and albums. Ain't nobody got time for that now.
  
  Streaming is fine to discover music, but you are not guaranteed that an album you like will be there for you the next time you want to listen to it. I do listen music in Spotify with a modded app, then I download the albums I liked. There are albums that I can't listen to Spotify anymore, but I still have the audio files in my Subsonic server.

The funniest thing to ask money for. Just have genius.com open or stream the song on YouTube, the lyrics are probably in the description or at the very least the comments.
- Anything to encourage even a single person to spend more money. It's just sad, really.
- Just google them

Why do people use Spotify still? Momentum?
Edited for clarity, I'm not saying music streaming I'm specifically referring to getting it from one company.
Whose CEO heavily invests in military AI
And pays artists' (and of course labels) the least out of their competitors?
- I don't get why anyone would use the free tier - not being able to choose songs would actually drive me insane, let alone the ads - but $11 monthly for essentially all the music anyone could ever want, plus solid playlists and recommendations, is a perfectly good value for me. Admittedly, I listen to music all the time and it's a pretty big part of my life, so it's an easy sell.
  I guess the free tier is still an improvement over radio, but regardless, producing and distributing music has costs, and I'm more than happy to pay for it. Given that Spotify isn't even profitable, having lost about a billion dollars last year, I'm not sure how long this situation will last, but for the time being, I really don't mind it.
  
  11$/month is 132$/yr. That's a significant amount of money - about the same as my car insurance, broadband or phone bill. Putting a bunch of good music in a playlist and letting it roll is nice enough, especially with a 3rd party app to mute ads automatically. Besides, I don't feel sorry for Spotify. The reason they're hemorrhaging money isn't a lack of profitability, but due to the massive royalties going to record companies.
  E: spelling
  
  Spotify isn't the only company offering a monthly fee though.
- It's convenient. It's where all my playlists are... that said, I'm open to alternatives?
  
  Listen on YT with adblock
  Download audio with Newpipe (OPUS 160kbps)
  Manage files with Amaze
  Listen with VLC
  I like this model, because YT has niche creators and I dont have to care about "Spotify changes X" news. Note: I have 1.5GB songs stored locally and listen ~30 minutes daily. I acknowledge discovering new songs is slower
  
  You can just use NewPipe background player. NewPipe lets you create and save playlists. No ads.
  
  Well, piracy, but I'd say apple music or tidal, etc are even better than Spotify. There are services for transferring your playlists.
  Some are paid but if it's just a one time transfer you could do them all in a free trial window.
  
  download mp3s from youtube. Use rhythmbox on linux and metro on android. Metro even tries to find the lyrics online
- Momentum is the driving force behind all enshitification.
- Because it’s fantastic? Because it has almost all the music out there? Because it has an app on every device under the sun? Because it has amazing artist discovery? Because it lets you know of upcoming shows in your area?
  Why wouldn’t you use Spotify if you’re a music fan? I’ve got 200gb+ of music on my NAS that I use Plexamp to listen to but I still subscribe to and use Spotify more.
  
  I'm saying use one of the many streaming alternatives.
  Do people use "Spotify" as a generic term for steaming?
- What would you suggest as an alternative?
- xManager
  
  What's that?
- You nailed it. People’ve been using it for so long they don’t want to use any number of paid or free services to automatically move all their playlists and whatnot over to a different service.
  
  Maybe people are happy with Spotify?
- I love their algorithm
  
  The random algorithm needs to be polished though.
- If you have an eclectic music taste and don't spend your life next to a computer, there's practically no other option
  
  Tidal, Deezer, Qobuz, Funkwhale, Apple Music, Youtube Music, just to name a few. Spotify has no shortage of competition.
  
  Apple music, Tidal, etc.
  Spotify is funding military AI tech. That's enough for me. I'm on android but I'd still rather use Apple Music, plus they pay artists slightly more, and tidal pays more than them.
- Basically exclusively because of Spotify Connect and the network effect. A lot of the music I listen to isn't even available on Spotify.
  I prefer Deezer's recommendation algorithm. I don't have experience wity other streaming services.

Solid business decision by Spotify here, I support this move. I’ll probably switch over to them from YouTube music.
- I know right. What's Spotify's goal with this move
  
  What’s Spotify’s goal with this move
  Get people to pay for premium.....
  
  The goal is that now that they've been caught pirating lyrics, they have to pay MusixMatch for their lyrics, perhaps on a per request basis, so they lose money by making it available.

spotify-premium-apk for the mobile devices, soulseek for the desktop.
- Xmanager > random spotify premium apk
  
  Just installed via xManager after your comment and now I can't log in...

Soulseek is still around ;)
- slsk forever
- Failed me

Still working for me with just the basic removed plan on the web/desktop.
That being said: Fuck you Spotify lol
Edit: fuck GadolElohai and CybranM too ya low expectation having downvoting motherfuckers lol

Does anybody know of an alternative app that can do live lyrics?
- It's all about having the .lrc file, it gets read automatically (as long as it's named like the song file) by mpv player and many android players.
  It's a simple text file containing the lyrics with timestamps. You can get them from deezer for example with certain downloaders. Or look for them on Soulseek.
  
  Yup. Recently let a foobar extension run through my music library and download .lrc's. Now I can read them with Poweramp on my phone.
- Spotube.
  Note that it's not really a Spotify streaming app, rather it uses your (free) Spotify account for playlists, search, recommendations, etc. and then goes and find the song you want to play on YouTube, and the lyrics from scraping websites I think. Pretty clever.
- The lyrics source that Spotify uses is free with a few caveats, like ads. The normal synced lyrics are free though.
  The source is musixmatch and they have a floating lyrics window on Android which is neat.
- Googles YouTube music just got updated for live lyrics.
  
  It's out of sync and I don't know how to scroll manually when it happens.
- Tidal. I use it because Id gotten tired of Spotify and YouTube Music's BS
- ViMusic
- I just use Shazam for that

Why don't you guys torrent ? I am back to torrenting and its the best.
- Because direct downloads are better and faster.
  https://slavart.gamesdrive.net/
  https://free-mp3-download.net/ (don't use apostrophes in the search for this one)
  You're welcome.
  Edit: Also, Real-Debrid if you want to directly download any torrent instantly at your connection's maximum bandwidth (up to 1Gbps) without having to wait for seeds. But this one costs money. (It's worth it, though, especially if you're downloading a lot of 50GB+ AAA games like I am.)
  
  How do we use real-debrid ? I don't understand it.
- Have fun

Recently ditched subscription services because of non-stop price hikes. Now I'm on Navidrome with a VPS and using Ultrasonic on my Android for mobile and Android Auto listening. For music, I turn to good old Soulseek and Telegram bots.
Never going back. The control and savings make it all worth it.

Jokes on you, I already memorized them all
- You say that like you can listen to the lyrics instead...
  
  You say that like there aren't thousands of songs with unintelligibly fast singing... lol

Is there an easy way to download tons of music without paying for a shit ton of albums?
- Deemix, yt-dlp
- Lidarr
- You can probably whip up a .bat file to download entire albums worth of music from YouTube and other sites

I've been using Qobuz. Sure it's still paid, but I can buy downloads for any of the music on there. Same with Bandcamp. I've been buying one album every paycheck and putting them on my storage blocks, then putting them on my media player and phone. I support my favorite bands, and get to keep something in return. On top of all this, I hunt down CDs. I've got a massive physical music collection, and it's nice.

Third party apps for Spotify is definitely the way to go if you don't have premium.
- What are those?
  
  Xmanager for android. For other platforms you can checkout Spotx

Hoes mad (x24)

Free on vimusic.

I can't find the reference, but isn't Spotify the service which stole the lyrics from another site? And then the other site added morse code on some of them to catch them red handed?
That could be part of the reason if it was
- I believe the squabble you're talking about was between Genius and Google, don't think Spotify was stealing lyrics from anywhere
  
  I tried googling it.. couldn't find it.. What you're saying sounds more familiar.
  But, Spotify probably licenses their Song lyrics too I'm guessing, so, not sure how royalties work for that, and could be a factor
  
  I have this memory, that apple was accused to have pirated sone lyrics as well, lol
- IIRC correctly, Genius added white space to some of their lyrics so that when Google scraped them, they could prove they got it from their site since the scraped content also had the random white space.
  
  Found it..
  How did Genius become certain of that discovery? By hiding a Morse code message within some of the lyrics on its own site, the code being a series of curly and straight apostrophes which, when assembled, correspond to the Morse code for the word “REDHANDED” (as in, Google has been caught red-handed). Sure enough, those apostrophes showed up in Google results. But here’s the thing, though. After confronting Google with that evidence as described in a lawsuit Genius filed today against the search giant (with Genius describing that evidence as Watermark #1), Genius then decided to hide a second secret code (Watermark #2) inside its lyrics to further prove the lyrics are being copied.
  They used it to spell out "REDHANDED" in morse code using apostrophes too..
  Either way, not the case here
  https://bgr.com/business/genius-sues-google-another-secret-code-proves-lyrics-copied/

They also broke adding songs to playlists on mobile lmao

Could someone kindly ELI5 how to lidarr-ize my liked tracks from Spotify, please?
My collection there is quite static and I think I'm a good candidate to go MP3/AAC/whatever 🏴‍☠️ plus Spotify free just to keep up to date with newly released singles/albums from time to time.
Thanks!
P.S. also what comes after would be great, i.e. how I can batch transfer all those files from my home server running lidarr to my Android phone/PC and keep them in sync after the initial transfer. Plus also a nice feature rich Android app, either free (no ads) or even better open source with an accessible price.
- Also, if you're up for the self-hosted life, what comes next is a music server. If you have good access to WiFi or unlimited data, this eliminates storage as a bottle neck. I recommend Navidrome. But something like Jellyfin or Plex can do Movies and TV, if you want a 1 size fits all.
  If you're not, look into Syncthing. You chose a folder on your computer and one on your phone and this app keeps them in sync. After that, my favorite player was GoneMad. It's offline, with real support for music tags. This allowed song ratings and real smart playlists
  
  Thanks!
  Yeah I forgot to mention that I'm already living the self hosted life, I got a small home server with the arr suite, jellyfin and a few other containers.
  Didn't know about syncthing, I'll definitely check it out. Same for GoneMad 👍🏻
  Thanks again!
- Skip Lidarr for your initial move. Use Deemix. You can find links to premium ARLs on the wiki or with a google search (or DM me).
  Deemix has an option to sign in with your Spotify account and download playlists. There's a weird song count limit, and you may have to manually hit some tracks. But this is the way.
  You can also do Flac with this setup. You don't necessarily need it, but if you're making the move, I recommend it. Since Flac is lossless, there's never going to be an upgrade.

But do you? I can still see them, using xManager.
- I've seen xManager and couldn't convince myself to install it. Do you need a Spotify account? Does it let you create playlists as you wish?
  
  Yes for both.

They're still visible with the current xmanager version
- Yeah but the change is server sided so it will stop working soon I suppose.
  
  No. Xmanager patch unlocks premium features. So literally you're a premium user.

I pay them for other reasons.
- Lol you guys pay for premium?
- Make the record labels rich so that they can sue and bully people thank you!

BRUH

222 comments