“Its antagonists include politicians: Senator Al Franken sent a letter to the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission last week calling for an investigation into Apple’s App Store,” Julia Greenberg reports for Wired. “The Minnesota senator says that Apple unfairly takes a 30 percent cut of Apple Music competitors’ subscription revenue, forcing competitors to charge more.”
“Consumer advocates are also taking aim: the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog has independently called for an investigation into Apple’s dealings with music labels,” Greenberg reports. “And, of course, to other streaming services, Apple’s practices seem unfair… But while Apple may be putting its competitors into a bind, it’s not clear that Apple is doing anything illegal. Its practices might seem monopolistic. But what might look like a monopoly from the losing side might, from the winner’s vantage, just look like winning.”
Greenberg reports, “Streaming services hoping for a reprise of the e-books scandal with these questions around the App Store may face an uphill battle.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, if Spotify, Rdio, Rhapsody, Tidal, Pandora, etc. don’t like Apple’s App Store terms, they are free to market their wares to non-iOS users. Surely their “freemium” offering will be in very high demand among the BOGOF cheapskate set who have proven more than willing to surrender their privacy and personal date in exchange for what they erroneously think is “free.”
As myopic “analysts” like to repeatedly tell each other on CNBC, Apple’s iOS market share is dwarfed by Android, that amazing and wondrous OS that delivers not only a poor facsimile of iOS and 99% of all mobile malware, but also exceedingly profitless results for knockoff peddlers the world over. Therefore, Apple clearly does not have a monopoly in smartphones (only in brilliantphones), so there’s simply no monopoly to abuse, Al.
Spotify and the rest of the also-rans: Go peddle your outmoded, inferior crap to the billion+ fragmandroid settlers if you don’t like Apple’s App Store terms. Knock yourselves out.
SEE ALSO:
U.S. Senate Democrat Al Franken urges federal probe of Apple Music – July 23, 2015
Consumer Watchdog Asks U.S. feds to investigate Apple Music over alleged ‘antitrust violations’ – July 22, 2015
Apple Music faces antitrust scrutiny in New York, Connecticut – June 10, 2015
a href=”http://macdailynews.com/2015/05/07/rival-music-services-claim-apples-app-store-pricing-is-anticompetitive/”>Rival music services claim Apple’s App Store pricing is anticompetitive – May 7, 2015
EU regulators already probing Apple’s music streaming plans in Europe – April 2, 2015