YouTube Music Restricts Lyrics Access to Premium Subscribers
YouTube Music has recently implemented a significant change by restricting access to full song lyrics exclusively to its Premium subscribers. This move follows a period of testing and has now been rolled out globally, affecting users across various regions.
Previously, all users, regardless of their subscription status, could view complete song lyrics within the YouTube Music app. However, with the new policy, free-tier users are limited to viewing only the first few lines of a song’s lyrics. To access the full lyrics, users are prompted to subscribe to YouTube Music Premium or YouTube Premium.
Upon reaching the limit of five free lyric views, free users will encounter a message stating, You have [x] views remaining. Unlock lyrics with Premium. After exhausting these views, the remaining lyrics are blurred and unscrollable, effectively restricting access to the complete lyrics without a subscription.
This change aligns YouTube Music with other streaming services that have placed certain features behind a paywall. For instance, Spotify previously experimented with restricting lyrics access to Premium users but reverted the decision following user backlash.
YouTube Music Premium offers additional benefits beyond lyrics access, including ad-free playback, background listening, offline downloads, and AI-powered features like Ask Music. In the United States, YouTube Music Premium is priced at $10.99 per month, while YouTube Premium, which extends these benefits to the main YouTube app, costs $13.99 per month.
The decision to restrict lyrics access comes amid YouTube’s broader strategy to enhance its subscription offerings. Earlier this week, Google reported having over 325 million paid subscriptions across its consumer services, with significant adoption for Google One and YouTube Premium. In 2025, YouTube generated over $60 billion in revenue from advertising and subscriptions combined.
This move has sparked discussions among users, with some expressing dissatisfaction over the paywall implementation. The change underscores the ongoing trend of streaming platforms monetizing features that were previously available for free, prompting users to evaluate the value proposition of premium subscriptions.
