Apple Gets Antitrust Scrutiny Over Music Deals

An anonymous reader writes: Bloomberg reports that the U.S. Federal Trade Commission is probing Apple after its acquisition of Beats Electronics, and its various deals with record labels to sell music through the iTunes store. As part of the acquisition, Apple now owns the music streaming service created by Beats, and they're planning to release a new version sometime soon. This makes their ties to the record labels, already deep because of iTunes, even stronger — and could affect the labels' relationships with other streaming services, like Spotify. Investigators want to know if Apple is using these business deals as leverage for "curtailing ad-supported music and pushing more songs into paid tiers of service at higher rates."

Comments

Re:Beats music another app I can't delete

[ArcadeMan]

Get yourself an iPhone 3GS, Apple will leave you alone.

Re:"affect the labels relationships with other ser

[danomac]

The future of music sure sucks, doesn't it?

Internet down = no music
Music streaming site down = no music
Music library site down/out of business = no music