YouTube Music is now asking users to subscribe to either YouTube Premium or Music Premium to access song lyrics, which were previously free. The change was tested with a small group of users for months and has rolled out globally.
The new feature displays a warning message when the user views more than five free lines, telling them to “Unlock lyrics with Premium” to see the full lyrics. After five free views, only the first few lines are visible, while the rest are blurred.
Google may be trying to reduce costs by cutting ties with third-party services that provide lyrics, similar to how Spotify briefly attempted this last year but was met with user backlash.
Source: https://www.macrumors.com/2026/02/09/youtube-music-paywalls-song-lyrics