The Department of Justice is looking closely into Apple’s business practices in relation to its upcoming music streaming service, according to multiple sources. The Verge has learned that Apple has been pushing major music labels to force streaming services like Spotify to abandon their free tiers, which will dramatically reduce the competition for Apple’s upcoming offering. DOJ officials have already interviewed high-ranking music industry executives about Apple’s business habits.
[…]
Sources also indicated that Apple offered to pay YouTube’s music licensing fee to Universal Music Group if the label stopped allowing its songs on YouTube. Apple is seemingly trying to clear a path before its streaming service launches, which is expected to debut at WWDC in June. If Apple convinces the labels to stop licensing freemium services from Spotify and YouTube, it could take out a significant portion of business from its two largest music competitors.
This clearly calls for an official EU investigation into Google.
Why the stupid comments about Google? Are you really that much of a fanboy you have forgotten EU has investigated and punished Apple long before they investigated Google?
Anyway, dick move by Apple, and nice to see American authorities actually doing something useful.
Yet they haven’t gone after Apple over locking of default browser in iOS to safari. Yet i bet if google did that it would be a fine. And MS gets Fined over just Having IE in windows.
Edited 2015-05-04 22:20 UTC
Maybe because MS commands over 90% market share in desktop operating systems? Get a clue will ya? Your ignorance is painful.
Let me start by saying that I think it’s too early to start saying Apple has done any of this. I am not saying that they haven’t but right now it is a simply a rumor from someone that works in the record industry. I could be wrong, but with Apple having an anti-trust monitor looking over their shoulders all the time, I find it hard to believe they would blatantly do this. But then again it could be more profitable to do this and pay a fine than to not do it at all.
I always find it amazing how people always want to make these comparisons. Apple makes everything they sell, They make the phone, they make the OS and they make the web browser. Because of this they have the right to do with it whatever they want.
The problem with Microsoft was that they made the OS and sold it to the manufacturers, then started telling the hardware manufacturers that if they sold computers with Windows with any web browser other than IE than they would stop giving them a discount on Windows. This was an abuse of their monopoly. If Apple decided to tell Apple that they won’t give Apple a discount anymore than who cares.
Google is in the same situation as Microsoft was. They make an OS, and they make apps for the OS, so they have to tread lightly about telling the hardware manufacturers what they can and cannot do with the OS, and that is why they should be investigated.
So someone involved in what are probably quite tough negotiations leaks a rumour that makes the other side look bad – must be true.
Considering I’ve made it clear numerous times that I agree with investigating Google, you’re trolling.
http://www.osnews.com/story/28478/Europe_opens_antitrust_investigat…
Edited 2015-05-04 22:21 UTC
When I read that sentence I know people weren’t going to understand. I was actually thinking about posting something about “sarcasm” or link to the other article where you made the same inside joke.
The thing is that even though you might think this works…it doesn’t online. You remember that other article and so did I, but most people simply don’t
The referenced article: http://www.osnews.com/story/28499/_Apple_now_rejecting_applications…
Use air quotes next time :
http://media.giphy.com/media/qs6ev2pm8g9dS/giphy.gif
Duh! You forgot the emoji’s. How else is people going to understand sarcasm online. By using their brain??
Edited 2015-05-05 08:28 UTC
The sarcasm is perfectly visible, the problem is that the sentence including sarcasm, is a stab at EU investigating Google.
A stab at EU investigating Google, yet allowing uber massive fiscal ‘optimization’ for Amazon, Apple, Microsoft… Google and on through Ireland and Luxembourg.
Schizophrenia !
Read my original post again. Because what you are saying is not only not true, it is the not even remotely close to the truth. EU has already punished both Microsoft and Apple, long before taking interest in Google. And if you read Apple financial statements, they have recently announced they may get hit with a new mega fine from EU (due to their possibly illegal tax deal with Ireland).
So how do you somehow misconstrue this nto EU being against Google somehow?
Edited 2015-05-06 17:22 UTC
In the post you linked to you mentioned all agreements should be out in the open.
Which I sort of agree about, but where do you draw the line, every Internet (access or hosting) provider makes agreements all the time:
https://www.netnod.se/ix/what-is-peering
Google is actually the largest most inter-connected network of all. It has the most peers.
This article might even explain it better:
http://blogs.broughturner.com/2009/04/youtubes-fine-analysts-dont-u…
But if you think Google has a grip on the market, this statistic might surprise you.
Here is a quote from an article that linked to the link below:
“A survey of Chinese Internet users, carried out by Tencent, shows 80% claimed to have installed an unofficial Android ROM at least once. Not only does this make you wonder about their sampling methodology, if it^aEURTMs even close to the truth it suggests Android in China has wandered much further from Google having anything like ^aEURoecontrol^aEUR over the OS than we thought”
http://www.chinainternetwatch.com/12926/80-china-smartphone-users-r…
Try calming down. It’s almost like the joke touched a nerve or something.
It’s just random comments on a itsy bitsy web site. I don’t think anybody cares.
This is business as usual. Any “EU investigation” takes so long that the issue is long replaced by other more pressing issues requiring a new investigation. EU is a joke, and Google pretty well knows it.
Moving on.
Yes it is a slow process. But I don’t think Microsoft saw it as a joke. It was one of the reasons Microsoft went from being a predatory monopoly to just a monopoly.
Not really. The United States federal courts finding that Microsoft was in fact, a monopoly (which everyone knew, but hadn’t been declared in a legal sense before), was part of what started slowing them down.
Some poor development choices didn’t help (oddly, I don’t consider Vista a mistake by Microsoft– it was a necessary pain they had to go through to get to Windows 7).
If you have a gripe with Google post in an article discussing Google. The topic at hand is Apple, and their monopoloistic attempt to stifle competition. Stay on topic.
Boycott Apple?
by matthekc on Fri 13th Feb 2009 22:18 UTC
I’ve been screaming Archos on every Ipod article and yelling boycott apple more than is healthy. Today I ask you, I have been calling for a boycott of Apple for a year, are you ready to boycott yet?
I have not been an Apple fan for a long time. It’s a shame I wish I could like and respect them… they have some nice stuff. I don’t think they are quirky creative company. I don’t think they are an underdog, maybe at one time but certainly not now. I think they are an abusive, anti-competitive, evil mega-corporation.
I wouldn’t have taken you seriously at the time if you’d have suggested Archos as an alternative, and even less so now. Awful hardware.
a post on ‘the Verge’ which nowadays seems to just re-gurgitate press releases.
It may come down to nothing more than part of the barganing between Apple and the Record labels.
One so called press release does not a story make.
Personally, if the Apple service gave more $$$$ back to the artists (and not the labels) than the likes of Spotify then I might even consider using it.
Until then I buy all the music I want on CD and rip it. However I am not in the taget demographic for any music streaming service so I don’t figure in the sums.
*if* Apple are using strong-arm tactics to coerce the big labels to “encourage” their other streaming partners to drop the free tier services, then that’s shady, should probably be investigated. And Apple (and cooperative labels) should of course *then* be punished suitably if found guilty, etc.
However in the longer term: I imagine Spotify and any other streaming providers that offer free tiers – will currently have *steaming licenses* with the different labels concerned which are no doubt time-limited licenses, and non in-perpetuity licenses, and will almost certainly have renegotiation clauses and so on
And with this in mind – I think we can perhaps agree that everybody involved in the industry (as a professional) wants to make a buck (and some more of a *fast* one) – and that most right minded folk will want the artists fairly remunerated ; and a little grudgingly even the labels too (FAIRLY remunerated that is, not excessively) – especially for their recording but also their marketing costs.
So, in the longer term, I can’t see how Spotify’s numbers will be able to add up on their free tier services – ad revenues won’t make up the shortfall, and their premium subscribers won’t want to be propping up the free service and basically paying over the odds.
So, no matter what contracts Spotify have *currently* with the labels – with Amazon, Apple, Google, Tidal and more around, non-free models will eventually imho consolidate on 10-20/month (it will probably unfairly be dollars in US, Euro in Europe and Pounds in UK as usual!) for “medium” and “HQ/premium” services respectively – roughly across the board.
-But just with little tweaks in pricing, and service level offering(K/Mbps), and range 50K-1000M songs!
.I feel that after the future negotiations on the cost of their license to stream -freely or otherwise- ,I simply doubt the numbers will ad up for Freely – OR they will just have to curtail free use – 2hrs free/wk perhaps at <192kpbs quality. Something like that
In the long run – (at this point) – I think the Free Market forces will sort this one out…
for once.
Forcing “free” streaming services away-from-free before they’re obliged to do so or obliged to renegotiate is the issue here.
..and the eternal footnote: pirates will still pirate – but I think we’re already at a steady-state (kinetics wise) on that.
Br,
Edited 2015-05-05 10:26 UTC
p.s. I would only happily support and sign up for a paid streaming service – from any of the big providers – if the agreements with the big labels do NOT inhibit or interfere with, in ANY way – the small labels or in fact individuals from adding joining up to said service with a FREE content-provider account, providing their song(s) gratis as-is and having the same *per play* payback as each and every other song.
ONLY fair way.
I use the free spotify. Its good enough for my needs and I dont mind the odd advert as I have it playing sometimes in the background. It is not, however, worth ^Alb10 a month to me as I simply don’t use the service enough to justify it. With the free model they are at least making Some money from me from the advertising. If they offer paid only (as per XBox music) then they will get ^Alb0 from me.
that makes complete sense that you would pay ^Alb0 when you don’t think it’s worth any more to you.
what if the landscape changes?
If torrenting became more onerous – maybe standard ports/service blocking by isp’s. if Tor as-is gets blocked and one is forced potentially into setting up some alternative newfangled onion router and maybe having to run an exit node just for a place within such a nascent new network; and all that for simple access to “dark web” torrent indexing sites or torrent files.
and if at the same time, quality is perhaps degraded further on youtube, right songs becoming ever hard to find, no download rights etc…
if such roadblocks, or at least hardships, come into force
and you are offered then 2 or 3 alternatives (possibly non of which being free streaming).
But let’s include 1 Free and say–>
Free:
60 minutes free mid-quality streaming a week, no download option.
^Alb3/month:
3hrs free mid-quality streaming a week; 30 minutes HQ streaming a week; 1 free download a month.
^Alb10/month:
unlimited free mid-quality streaming; 2hrs HQ streaming a week; 5 free downloads a month
^Alb20/month:
unlimited HQ streaming; 10 free downloads a month.
—-
Would you still go for the above very limited Free option in this new -and possibly in-a-future-near-you- landscape..???
that was really my original suggestion — not why would you abandon free spotify AS-IS while it’s still an option.
Edited 2015-05-05 13:31 UTC
That is a LOT of ifs! I am not sure it particularly helps the point you are making though. Big names have tried the model you describe before and abandoned it.
Spotify used to have exactly the time-based limits you describe (and not far off the costs). Premium was also required for mobile. Microsoft then followed Exactly the model you describe with Zune Pass (what is now called XBox music). You can see an old comparison <a href=”http://www.cnet.com/uk/news/zune-vs-spotify/“>here
Spotify relinquished this model, at least in part, because it made users go elsewhere. I would listen to my limit on Spotify, then go to XBox, then switch to LastFM or similar until it reset. It was only when they unblocked the limit that I spent the time building playlists and became a returning user exclusively to Spotify.
This is obviously just My usage, others will vary
You’re right. it was a lot of if’s. And I’ll reply again – not because I’m trying to be annoying but I’m genuinely interested in the conundrum (if there is one) of how one can get a slice of some speculative *paid for* creative content pie into all the right hands.
And I am being the pot calling the kettle black here (i free admit); i used to byuy a shed load of CD’s when younger, but now.. a- i have less listening time, b -i sometime pirate, mainly c- I’m getting older and resort to older tunes already in my possession.
but the crux at some point has to be are we willing to pay for access to content – specifically music content. Netflix (not an ideal solution to me) but that is covering the low-rent, imperfect library, videostreaming market
If free or near-free ad-supported audiostreaming wins on the music side – surely this isn’t great if we want a future with professional (and diverse) musicians.
A musician friend on mine had an idea to require a percentage of your monthly ISP subscription fee to go to a variety of content providers/via some regulated remuneration organisation(s) – maybe watermark songs and if the right unencrypted packets for Blur’s Song 2 for instance cross the threshold into your household – 0.00X % of your Media levy to said remuneration org would go to Blur.
I personally don’t like the idea of all traffic for Media streaming being monitored any more than I like any other traffic being monitored en masse.
But surely musicians (the fraction of supposedly professional musicians; those who would like to be paid for their work) deserve to be paid.
I mean surely any music listener would be willing to paid at least $50/year for their music streaming costs – and spread it out per play..?
OR is free what what actually want, what we deserve.?
OR again, maybe the other kind of free, the speech one, is more important and as stated before, free *access* to all the (streaming/download) markets for the little players is more important – the big boys will always monetise their offerings and their *stars* somehow..
guess it’ll all come out in the wash../
Nothing wrong with buying, owning, and curating your own library. Format doesn’t matter (digital file, CD, vinyl, etc.)
If you purchase 1 new album and 3 used per month, that’s under $30 per month and your collection will be your own. It will hold both emotional and monetary value as equity. A subscription has neither.
Building and enjoying your collection is the fun. It’s not like radio/streaming, where you take what they give you one way or another.
I think streaming has replaced music radio, and therefore should be free to all listeners and supported only by advertising. If spotify needs to play 6 commercials an hour to support the artists that you are enjoying (and not purchasing) then so be it, that’s still 12 commercials less per hour than radio.
the EU already have a Private copying levy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_copying_levy#cite_ref-9
Many countries within it don’t actually implement the levy and fewer still actually distribute it to musicians..
The problem is, if a levy is paid to your government out of your ISP bill then how should that be split?
Should it go to Pop Superstars directly as their work is pirated the most?
Art councils to promote new music and culture in general?
Should it go to record companies as their profits are also affected?
Whatever metric you use to determine who deserves it, it will annoy someone. This is particularly true when you don’t actually have specific numbers. Imagine the backlash if they monitored all your traffic to see if you were listening to particular songs! I think that is a privacy issue noone would touch (I hope!)
edit:- href wouldnt behave
Edited 2015-05-06 13:41 UTC
I stopped using Apple products about a year ago with an iPad being the last straw. It was so tryranically controlled and lacking basic features that I couldn’t stand using it. After I bought a Lenovo ThinkPad Yoga 12.5 and saw the amount of features vs. my MacBook Pro, that went as well.
Apple products are now just too overpriced for what you actually get, especially when compared with what’s out there. I still run OSX just fine on my Yoga and I now have a built in Wacom stylus and touchscreen, easily upgradeable SSD drive, PCIe cards and memory. I would actually be downgrading if I went with a Macbook Pro.
Look at the new MacBook, who the heck is that made for. If you want super thin and light without compromising features, the new Lenovo LaVie is only 7mm thick, just 1.8mm thicker than the MacBook but it’s also lighter than the MB at only 1.86lbs vs. 2.03 lbs. Your also getting; 2x USB 3.0, SD card reader, HDMI port, 13″ 2560 x 1440 display, i7-5500U (which wipes the floor with the Intel M found in the MB), 8GB, 256GB SSD and same battery life for only $100 bucks more. Sorry but you would have to be on crack to buy the MacBook and again like every Lenovo laptop I’ve ever owned, OSX should install just fine.
The MacPro is another one, I could have a dual CPU Xeon 14 core machine, 64GB RAM, 512GB PCIe SSD, dual Quadro K5000’s (that actually link up unlike the two cards in the MacPro for 2 grand less. …..and Still have room in the box for say an Intel Phi, Nvidia Tesla, more RAM, more HD’s (like 5 15’000 RPM 640GB SAS Hitachi drives in a raid configuration), etc. Why would I want a computer that needed an external ThunderBolt connected case for every extra prepherial I addd. Sure it’s small and nice looking but these are workstations, no one needs nice looking. They need flexability, upgradeability not what looks best on the desk.
Edited 2015-05-05 12:18 UTC
Streaming as it currently exists will not survive for long.
It will either be made illegal again (like in the 90’s) or royalty rates will be increased enough to put most of the streamers out of business.
I’m not against the technology itself, and I have been a streaming listener (and programmer) in the past. But it’s not sustainable if they won’t pay the content-owners properly.
It’s not about how much a streamer should have to pay for the “right” to stream the world’s music and collect revenue from it. It’s about how much they are willing to pay for the content, and how much they are willing to play ball with the artist’s other marketing, sales and outreach efforts.
People want everything for free, or think that a 30 seconds of commercial message is enough to “pay” for hours of music.
Most people have no idea how expensive it is to produce professional music, even today. Yes computers have brought some of those costs down (especially for amateurs) but it can still easily cost $10k+ per song for production, and another $5k/year to manage the release and publishing.
You can’t just say “tour” either – since not every artist can tour. Whether it’s health, age, geographic location – it’s not exactly easy to live on the road and try to profit $100k crisscrossing the continent in a bus. The most established artists can do it, profiting just enough on the road to stay in business, but for new artists you still need someone to sponsor those early tours. With no record company and no sales revenue, it’s harder and harder to find those people.
At how many that screamed for MSFT to be destroyed are rushing to defend Apple (or Google) when they do shit just as damaging to the free market and anticompetitive as MSFT during the early to late 90s.
For the record I thought MSFT should have been broken up and I think both Google and Apple should be busted by antitrust and see heavy fines until they are forced to open up their platforms to competition. There is no reason why iOS and Android couldn’t have a “pick your browser” screen at first launch like the EU demanded of MSFT, and every time a corp is caught trying to rig a market like this? They should be barred from having ANY access to that market for a period of 5 years and any products they are pushing in that market should be buried in fines until they are closed down, PERIOD.
Monopolies are toxic to a free market, and market rigging to gain a monopoly should be treated as a major crime, with the very real possibility of jail time for the ones that signed the approval of these kinds of backroom deals. If there is one thing we in the states have seen over and over is that monopolies benefit nobody but the one with the monopoly, it leads to stagnation, higher prices, and kills innovation and the growth of new ideas in that market segment. I hope Apple gets hit harder than MSFT got hit, otherwise its a slap on the wrist and a waste of time!
Tidal @ 16/44 is liveable, but streaming MP3 is pretty harrible.
It makes music background music only.
If you turn it up, try to really enjoy it, you are boxed out with MP3 paper-sound. You are hit with digital distortion. Digital compression. Digital shit. Don’t play it on a PA. Don’t crank it in your headphones for too long, you will really tire your ears.
Spotify sounds worse than a 1984 walkman playing a mixtape. It’s sad but true.
Yes it has millions of tracks – but if they all sound like ass, who cares? Hey, it’s another 10% of a song I really love. Not exciting. No passion. Background noise.
MP3 was designed over 25 years ago to push media files through dial-up modems, using every trick they could invent to fool you into thinking it was almost as good as the whole thing. The fact that people knowingly still try to enjoy MP3’s in 2015 is kinda sad. You have the space for a 30mb FLAC, and it will sound so much better than a 5mb MP3.
All these stupid wireless speakers everywhere just double the mess. What passes for sound quality right now is about as bad as it’s ever been.
Edited 2015-05-05 13:49 UTC
Spotify doesn’t use MP3.
Edited 2015-05-06 22:23 UTC
what are they streaming then?
i’m pretty sure they do stream mp3, it’s just the highest quality mp3 @ 320k, and it does sound a lot better than lower quality mp3.
maybe they are using ogg? tidal’s the only one i know trying to stream 16/44 right now.
Noone is streaming 24bit audio that I’ve heard of, even though it would take less bandwidth than netflix HD.