Franken’s letter and the FTC’s possible investigation arrives a few months after Attorneys General Eric T. Schneiderman of New York and George Jepsen of Connecticut looked into possible collusion between Apple and the major record labels around streaming competition.
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If the company builds the streaming music service itself, Facebook Music would be unlike recent moves by the company.
It’s all well and good for savvy corporations to be rewarded for their success, but Franken calls foul on what he sees as an unfair advantage in a burgeoning marketplace.
“Increased competition in the music streaming market should mean that consumers will ultimately benefit through more choices of better products and at lower prices”, Franken wrote in the letter.
In the case of Spotify or Rdio, the subscription cost is $9.99 – Apple then asks for a 30 percent cut on that platform, so the streaming services up their price to $12.99 only on that platform.
Dalrymple’s problems with Apple Music run deep. But when Apple takes a slice of the revenue generated from its own competitors, Franken argues, it could be cause for concern.
One of our favorite iPhone apps has finally arrived on Apple Watch.
But Apple Music feels like an attempt to take on every competitive app from Pandora to Spotify to YouTube and advance the idea of online radio at the same time. Looking at my old iTunes Match library, before Apple Music, I’m missing about 4,700 songs. Apple’s ability to lock people up in its ecosystem forces users to accept what comes their way.
All other existing and new Samsung customers are being offered a free three-months worth of music streaming on Google Play Music too. Any in-app purchases, including buying a subscription to Spotify through the iOS app, would also technically fall under that 70-30 split.
“We’ve partnered with samsung to give music fans an easy way to store, download and stream music”.
I am writing to encourage you to examine Apple’s current dealing with app developers to determine whether the company is engaging in anticompetitive behavior in the music streaming market.
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His post has sparked complaints from other frustrated Apple Music users who just happen to write about tech, Business Insider notes. But the human compilers are presented as faceless entities such as “Apple Music Rock”.
