“European regulators are scrutinising Apple’s dealings with record labels, amid an intensifying battle over the future of free, ad-supported music streaming services such as Spotify,” Matthew Garrahan and Tim Bradshaw report for The Financial Times.
“Several labels and digital music companies have been contacted by the European Commission, according to people familiar with the matter,” Garrahan and Bradshaw report. “The information gathering is the first step in a probe and does not necessarily mean Brussels will launch a formal antitrust investigation.”
“If the commission concludes there is wrongdoing it is empowered to require changes to business practices and can impose hefty fines,” Garrahan and Bradshaw report. “The case in some ways echoes Apple’s US antitrust case over ebook pricing, over which the iPhone and iPad maker was ordered to pay $450m in damages. Apple is still appealing that case.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Likening this action to a total sham couldn’t be more appropriate.
Why are the government regulators interested? Two words: “Hefty fines.”
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other. — Ronald Reagan
Look up leaches, in the world dictionary and you have your answer.
Leeches .. Need more coffee
Money Suckers. That’s my definition.
Kee-rist! If the US government had the guts to have intervened with Microscum, we might have exited the “dark ages of personal computing” a lot sooner.
Leeches? Money Suckers? The uber-rich aristocracy are the leeches. It’s amazing how peons froth at the mouth defending the aristocracy and their obscene wealth.
Ronald Reagan bitched about government and then joined it- screwing up California first and the nation second. He screwed up the budgets of both California and the United States even as he grew government.
The Saint Reagan the NeoCons project is not the same person as Ronald Reagan former California Governor and US President.
Reagan never balanced the US Budget and exploded the deficit, he shackled regulatory oversight that led directly to the S&L Crisis and the huge Stock Market Crash of 1987 (the Dow dropped 22.6% in one day).
He did manage to piss away a couple of trillion on Star Wars and weapons systems we did not need like the B-1 Bomber that President Carter had cancelled.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Bezos is behind this.
Gosh comparing this probe to one of the court cases over there is like comparing those from the free and civilized world to those from a nation that regularly tortures and uses its toilet paper as a constitution.