Cancel Partnership with Musixmatch

[Winter2928]

Dear Spotify Community,

As a long-time curator on Musixmatch, I wanted to bring attention to an issue that has been deeply frustrating for myself and many others within the Musixmatch curator community. For over a year, I’ve actively contributed to improving the quality of lyrics across multiple platforms, including Spotify, by adding and fixing countless song lyrics. However, recent changes in Musixmatch’s practices have raised serious concerns, and I believe it’s time Spotify reconsiders its partnership with them.

Over the past 3-4 months, Musixmatch has stopped publishing curator-verified lyrics to third-party platforms like Spotify and Apple Music unless the lyrics are contributed through their “Mission” system. While this system rewards curators with monetary incentives for completing selected lyrics missions, it has effectively locked out non-mission contributions. This means that curators who want to continue contributing to improving the lyric database without chasing monetary rewards are unable to have their work published on Spotify or other platforms.

This shift has transformed Musixmatch from a collaborative, community-driven platform into a company more focused on monetizing contributions, and it feels like a monopoly. They’ve essentially locked down lyrics distribution to serve their financial interests at the expense of the broader curator community and platforms like Spotify, which rely on the accuracy and availability of these lyrics for their users.

As one fellow curator put it, "They locked non-mission contributions just so that they can make money, and that’s what a monopoly company will do." This sentiment echoes the frustration of many of us who’ve dedicated countless hours to making music more accessible through lyrics, only to find ourselves sidelined unless we contribute through this narrow and financially driven system.

Another curator shared: “I’ve spent months ensuring lyrics were correct, and now all my contributions are stuck in limbo. I refuse to participate in their ‘missions’ where only select songs are chosen. It feels unfair and limiting to the community.”

One of the most dedicated curators expressed similar frustration: "I’ve watched the quality of verified lyrics go down as well, since curators are now only focused on completing paid missions. Contributions outside this system are ignored, no matter how much they improve the song’s accuracy. It’s disappointing to see Musixmatch become so profit-driven."

For those of us who are non-mission contributors, it feels like our contributions are no longer valued. We are passionate about helping listeners connect with music through accurate lyrics, and now that’s being taken away. We’ve seen other curators voice similar concerns:

“I joined Musixmatch because I believed in its mission to provide accurate lyrics to music lovers everywhere, not to be locked into a system that profits off my unpaid work while restricting where those lyrics get published.”

Spotify has always been about giving users the best possible music experience, and that includes accurate and easily accessible lyrics. But by continuing a partnership with Musixmatch, a company that’s moving in the opposite direction—prioritizing profits over the community—it may ultimately harm Spotify’s reputation and the user experience.

I strongly urge Spotify to reconsider its partnership with Musixmatch and explore alternatives that are more aligned with the values of openness, collaboration, and community contribution. Let’s ensure that curators’ efforts aren’t restricted by monopolistic practices and that listeners everywhere can continue to enjoy accurate, high-quality lyrics on this platform.

Thank you for taking this into consideration.

[djariiz]

Words can't even state how much I agree with this. I love listening to unpopular and mostly unknown bands (the one I love the most only has 58 monthly listeners!) However, when I'm listening, it always bugs me that there are NO lyrics... and if they are, it's not synced. I love singing along to stuff, so this is a big bummer. I wanted to contribute, so I looked everywhere for how to do just that. And turns out that this is the case and I can't even contribute without verifying with my ID and passing tests? And HAVE to receive money? I can't believe this. I don't want this, I just want to contribute to my community. I agree with you 100%.

[Winter2928]

I completely relate to what you're saying. I contribute to Musixmatch both to help people connect with their favorite music through lyrics and to add lyrics for lesser-known artists that I love. It's been really frustrating to see those opportunities disappear behind all these new barriers like ID verification and paid missions.

Like you, I'm not in it for the money—I just want to make sure lyrics are available for everyone, especially for the smaller artists who don’t get as much attention. It’s great to know others feel the same way. Hopefully, with enough of us speaking up, we can see these unnecessary restrictions lifted.

[wileyfoxyx]

This. Not every lyrics are being published, and the ones that exist are out-of-sync (due to Spotify and other MXM partners showing word-by-word version of lyrics and not line-by-line) or gone completely.

[creatImre]

I also fully agree with this. I've been waiting for months on Musixmatch to be able to fill the curator test, only to find out that even now I'm a curator I can't add or sync lyrics to have any effect on Spotify. What a nonsense. Now the lyrics integration in spotify is completely useless. I'm almost sure that nobody will ever accept these songs with Missions which randomly selects songs to verify, or at least I have to wait for months (when I'll listen to other music probably) and this spiral will start again.

[Hugzer]

I totally relate this, being a curator on MusixMatch for years in a non-profit mode, contributing lyrics daily. My contribution now feels meaningless since you have to rely on paid tasks or artists paying for it…

[TheBMachine]

Couldn't agree more. One of Spotify's strong suits is its ability to let smaller artists shine and showcase their work. I loved submitting lyrics for new songs from my favorite small artists, many of which would otherwise never get added. These new policies are a kick in the face of anyone who has worked (for free!) to help improve Musixmatch's catalogue, and it's very disheartening to see the community-driven focus being discarded so carelessly. And don't even get me started on lyrics with errors that cannot be fixed because the pages are now locked.

Since Musixmatch have clearly made up their mind and have shown no interest in helping maintain an environment where smaller artists can shine through, I urge Spotify to either pressure them into changing their policies, or find a better brand to partner with that accurately reflects the values of the community.

[tum2X]

Just like you guys, I'm also in favor of wanting Musixmatch to cut its ties with streaming platforms, because my contributions to the lyric website hardly update there anymore.  Personally, Spotify's new font, which I don't like, gives me the same feeling.  But you must know that what's stated at the beginning of this thread is full of lies.  Non-mission contributing in Musixmatch isn't totally disabled; it was brought back in July of last year.  But curator-verified lyrics done before then are the only ones locked for curators.  Musixmatch did not make this new policy out of love for money.  They still value the work of curators who contribute for free.  The amounts of spamming that have grown exponentially since last April caused the lyric platform to block non-mission contributions from reaching online music players.  When we look at much of our contributions, we can say they weren't spammed.  That's just the frontend, but the Musixmatch staff can see the backend as well.  Stopping spammers isn't as easy as reporting them on the Musixmatch Slack workspaces and having them banned.  Those unwanted users keep on coming like an invading army.  Much of spamming is done through self-promotion, where the users put their social media accounts, so the Musixmatch lyric editing page flags lyrics containing the names of social media platforms, even if they were mentioned in the audio.

Musixmatch lets lyrics update on streaming platforms only if they were done through missions or Musixmatch Pro, where artists can verify their own lyrics.  The reason is that they're not likely to get spammed.  When curators complete missions, they are sent to specialists for checking, verification, and final locks.  Artists have the greatest power over their lyrics, so when they upload them to Musixmatch, regular users are locked out of correcting them.  And artists don't have to follow Musixmatch's contribution rules because the lyrics are their own.

[Winter2928]

I agree that spam is a serious issue, and it's good that Musixmatch has taken measures to prevent it from flooding platforms like Spotify. However, I believe there are ways to tackle the spam problem without locking out non-mission contributions entirely. Many of us in the community have been actively reporting spammers, and Musixmatch could implement stronger barriers—like improving the curator test and adding AI-based verification after submissions. Since Musixmatch already uses AI for automatic transcription and syncing, this should be feasible.

Regarding non-mission contributions, you're right that they're still visible on the Musixmatch website, but for many curators, the joy of contributing comes from seeing those lyrics appear on platforms like Spotify. For people like me, who enjoy adding lyrics for lesser-known artists that we love, it’s disheartening when our work gets stuck on Musixmatch and doesn’t make it to streaming platforms. I’m not against the mission system or Pro Artists having their own process, but it would be great if non-mission contributors had a chance to get their lyrics on platforms with some safeguards in place—like a small paywall or an improved verification process.

I understand why Musixmatch made these changes, but I think there’s room for a solution that benefits both curators and the platform without completely sidelining non-mission contributors.

[tum2X]

Musixmatch did not completely sideline non-mission contributors; like I said, since last July they allowed curators to edit, sync, and translate lyrics for free.  Musixmatch has bot accounts that verify lyrics, and the service did improve the curator test.  But users can pass the test, become curators, and then start spamming.  This is done not out of forgetfulness to contribution guidelines, but out of a deliberate desire to destroy the lyric catalog.  This keeps coming like a stampede of zombies, which is why Musixmatch had to make this strong move.  Therefore, if you notice, the lyrics curator Slack channel for reporting members is hardly active.

I understand how fun it is to see lyrics flash in time with the words that are sung/rapped in the audio.  I must admit it helped me appreciate lyrics in all genres of music no matter their diction and style.  I'm aware that this is what drew most people in the first place to contribute to Musixmatch.  Just like all of you guys, I passionately hate Musixmatch's new policy.  I really do.  But their decision is way beyond our control.  I know this is annoying, frustrating, and demotivating, but even before Musixmatch underwent maintenance checks, I learned to deal with the reality that there are lyrics in the site we truly won't be able to correct anymore.  Specialists will eventually take the final credit for contributions to each track, but while they're experts at lyric transcribing, formatting, and syncing, I won't agree with all their ways.  Spotify-Musixmatch connection problems won't always be solved, so specific track versions won't always get the right lyrics.  And translation curators need their work preserved, so they set lyrics in stone even if they contain mistakes.

I also understand how happy people are using online music players to learn the words to their favorite songs or just sing along.  But Spotify only started displaying lyrics long after it was founded.  I feel that I still have lots of Musixmatch lyric transcriptions that I want to correct again, but knowing I cannot do that anymore, I just play a song on Spotify and enjoy the music without turning on the lyrics.

[Bluehoundsquad]

It's atrocious. I remember as well back last year when they completely went under "for maintenance" and then stayed that way for SEVERAL months without any communication. Spotify's ONLY lyrics platform just went down. And it was already an abysmal experience everytime, with the bugs and glitches of their interface making every step a hassle. And now I've just found out I have to upgrade to a pro subscription and start paying them to go through the hassle of using their service to put lyrics on my own music, and there's ZERO alternative.

Spotify needs to do better.

EDIT: Yes I have now paid them to go through thus process. SEVERAL times of course, you have to account for the multiple times you have to redo things over and over again due to the app crashing, not saving, experiencing errors, and now I get to pay for that! Hurray.