Spotify is accusing Apple of making life harder for third party music streaming services to offer their content on its platforms. This comes as the iPhone maker blocked the latest version of Spotify’s app from the App Store; citing reasons “business model rules.”
Apple is demanding that Spotify conform to the rules of running services on its platforms; namely that it use Apple’s billing system. This billing system charges services 30-percent of their monthly income, which represents quite a bit of income for Cupertino; and cuts into Spotify’s revenue. Which is why the music stream service costs more to subscribe through iOS.
Spotify’s lawyer Horacio Gutierrez wrote to Apple saying, “this latest episode raises serious concerns under both U.S. and EU competition law. It continues a troubling pattern of behavior by Apple to exclude and diminish the competitiveness of Spotify on iOS and as a rival to Apple Music, particularly when seen against the backdrop of Apple’s previous anticompetitive conduct aimed at Spotify … we cannot stand by as Apple uses the App Store approval process as a weapon to harm competitors.”
Spotify and Apple are technically in direct competition for subscribers, which what lies at the heart of the conflict. Apple is supposedly abusing its position to push its own services, and this is not the first time that a company has tried to push back. It is believed that Amazon stopped carrying the Apple TV due to a dispute about Apple’s subscription rules.
Neither Spotify nor Apple have commented on the matter, but it looks like the standoff between the two is only going to get worse.
[Source: Recode]
