• MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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    5 months ago

    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.

    • Ptsf@lemmy.world
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      5 months ago

      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.

      • MajorHavoc@programming.dev
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        5 months ago

        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.

    • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
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      5 months ago

      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.

      • AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net
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        5 months ago

        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.

        • ThirdWorldOrder@lemm.ee
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          5 months ago

          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.

          • petrol_sniff_king@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            5 months ago

            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.