Spotify takes YouTube Music’s lead and rolls out real-time lyrics — but not to all regions

Spotify has been testing real time lyrics synced to music in some areas for a while now and now it seems that the feature is leaving the beta stage and is being rolled out. Techcrunch are reporting that from today Spotify will launch the new real time lyrics in 26 markets across the world.

The new feature is set to be available in only a select number of locations and unfortunately Australia is not one of them (interestingly, neither is the US). The markets that will see this new feature today include markets across Southeast Asia, India and Latin America.

The lyrics are being provided by Musixmatch and are provided in the language that the song is sung in. Similar to YouTube Music access to the new feature will be though a “Lyrics” tab at the bottom of the “Now Playing” screen.

The reason for the rollout only to certain markets is most likely due to licensing issues, something that other companies have also had issues with apparently. It is unclear if Spotify will continue the rollout to other countries in the future but we hope that it does eventually roll out here.

You would think that every lyric provider on the face of the Earth would want to partner with Spotify to get their service in front of so many eyeballs. I’m not a copyright lawyer though so for now we will just have to keep our fingers crossed that Australia eventually sees the new feature.