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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
Displaying written lyrics does not require a royalty payment to anyone.
It does unless they agree to let you redistribute the lyrics without one. Lyrics are copyrighted.
https://www.musicconnection.com/copyright-issues-scriped-entertainment-song-lyrics/
https://www.thelaw.com/law/are-song-titles-lyrics-protected-by-copyright-or-trademark-law.317/
You may get lucky and have a band that doesn't care or won't notice your operation, but Spotify has music from the big labels and they do care and they will notice.
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.
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.
... Why would the lyrics service allow that?
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
So confident while being completely wrong.
It does look that way, doesn't it? I'm dumb as fuck. Everything I have ever touched in my life has failed or crumbled. My few friends are dying or already dead and I seem to be wrong about most things in life. I should put a bullet in my head and get off this worthless ride. Thanks for the confirmation of what an idiotic, worthless piece of shit I am and what a valueless, burdensome waste of resources I have been on this planet. May your ride yield better results than mine did.