Relevant funny story from Deaf actor Daniel Durant: https://youtube.com/shorts/eYQKtwkoZOI

To everyone else reading down here, lot of people also don’t really get this same idea with visual impairment and other handicaps.

There are a lot of people who are legally blind, but that just means they can’t make out things at certain distances, and these are why we need things like high-visibility curbs and street markers and large-type text options and other accessibility features that able-bodied people in a wide field of industries often forget about and just assume either people are blind and won’t be using their products, or will have perfect vision. When really there are far more people who are considered deaf or blind who can still enjoy many of the same things as someone with fully faculties and just need a little extra help.

I am only typing this out because we seem to entering a strange time in the developed world where more and more people are withdrawing from the social contract and not extending compassion towards others, particularly those with special needs.

When I was little I thought the future would be a bright and remarkable place where people took care of each other, because those were the messages you see on PBS shows like Mr Rogers and Sesame Street. Turns out, a LOT of people didn’t watch those shows.

Wrapped up like a douche, another runner in the night

(mumbles in yellow led better)

Bunny’s too tight to mention

Deafness is commonly understood to include both total and partial hearing loss. Every major dictionary defines it this way. It might have a more precise meaning in some spheres (medical, etc), but in common English it is not binary the way you’re suggesting.

Merriam Webster: deaf

Dictionary.com: deaf

Cambridge English dictionary: deaf

No it really isn’t. The hard of hearing are considered deaf. There’s complete deafness, much like there’s complete blindness, but the fact that you’re calling it hearing impairment instead of hard of hearing indicates you aren’t as well versed in Deafness (not to be confused with deafness) as you think

Ability to hear music but inability to process the words.

yes officer take me downtown

Oh almost certainly. I have ADHD, prolly autistic, and I’ve had many times where my mind stopped processing what people are saying. Which is bad when you work tourism xD

It can depend on the mixing, too. Not just in regards to volume, but also in how the vocals are edited. My recent obsession has been Dusk at Cubist Castle, shit’s absolutely amazing. The way a lot of the vocals are mixed and processed are super cool, like layering the same lines over themselves five times over with subtle delays and panning, it sounds real cool! But it makes it sound a lot more distant to me as a result.

ew

Displaying written lyrics does not require a royalty payment to anyone.

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.

… Why would the lyrics service allow that?

The issue isn’t the storage, it’s the copyright holders

Sounds like a temporary issue but google does take its time to fix anything

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.

You don’t need lyrics to listen to music however.

I also don’t need an elevator to move between floors of a building that has stairs, while some people do.

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.

Ah, so you don’t understand disabilities then. Got it.

nobody’s talking about the bare minimum of federal law dude. this is a discussion about how humans are supposed to treat each other. if the way you walk around life is “well, it’s legal to be an asshole in this situation so I’ll do it” then there’s no point in having this conversation because do not have the time to make you a better person

also your example absolutely wild. the purpose of an elevator is to get you from here to there. the purpose of Spotify is to help you listen to music. people with hearing issues are required to pay extra or do extra work to get the same experience as a perfectly abled person.

so you’re cool with people with disabilities having to do more labor than you to get the same thing? go fuck yourself

Are Google lyrics timed??

I never said it was. I said that the requirement is the same whether it’s a free account or a paid one. It’s either always required or it’s never required, but it sure as Hell is not “their prerogative” based on how much they get paid.

Think about it for a second: what the parent commenter is suggesting is that it’s somehow okay for a company to use compliance with legal requirements as an upselling opportunity! You do see the problem with that line of thinking, right?!

Providing a substantially inferior outcome to someone with an ADA need absolutely violates ADA rules.

When stuff like this has gone to court it hasn’t been pretty for the offending organization.

There’s a bigger question about how much of what Spotify currently provides falls under ADA. Web services used to get a free pass. They largely don’t anymore.

Source: some of this stuff is my problem, professionally. And no, I’m not going to look up a primary source for anyone. That’s Spotify’s lawyers job.

The fact possibility that they’re unable to provide lyrics gives radio stations a free pass on this, under ADA (and most similar laws).

Edit: Correction, per correction below - options for providing radio captions do exist.

Edit 2: For anyone reading along to learn - a radio station without captioning technology is unlikely to be required to add captioning under any accessibility law I’m aware of. But a station that provides captioning is unlikely to be able to charge extra for that captioning under current accessibility laws.

Businesses are typically accountable to provide equitable accommodations at no additional charge.

A comparison that may help: a storefront with no dedicated parking whatsoever is typically not required to provide the usual required percentage of reserved accessible parking. Or rather, their zero reserved spaces meets the required percentage automatically, at it’s whatever percentage of zero total spaces.

Some do. It’s pretty rare, but stations that are more talk-show or interview style shows might have transcripts on their site afterwards. (The Final Straw Radio, my beloved)

Music stations? Probably not. At least I’m not aware of any that do. But I also don’t like hearing the disk jockey chat between music so I don’t listen to that type of radio ever.

I donate directly to artists, but fundamentally believe art and commerce are antithetical. And I won’t be shamed into paying exploitative middle men.