Sen. Al Franken Sounds Off On Apple’s Music Business Practices

Streaming services and record labels have been summoned by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman’s office asking questions about Apple’s Beats Music!

As previously reported, Apple takes a 30 percent cut of all purchases within its App store.

Launched globally on June 30, Apple Music is a 24/7 music streaming service and app with playlists for the iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and Apple TV, as well as for laptops, desktops and Android phones.

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.

US Senator Al Franken on Wednesday issued a letter to the US Federal Trade Commission requesting that it investigate Apple’s dealings in the streaming-music market. “These types of restrictions seem to offer no competitive benefit and may actually undermine the competitive process”, he continued. To disable auto-renewal when you sign up, tap the account icon in the upper-left corner of Apple Music, then sign into your iTunes account by tapping View Apple ID.

As of this afternoon, Apple’s system status page showed that all apps and services were performing as expected. As you would expect from an Apple apologist, Dalrymple starts his post with, “I love Apple”. I also failed by not backing up my library before installing Apple Music. Apple recognized T-Swizzle’s power over the music industry and reversed its policy soon after.

App developers have the tools to rapidly iterate their creations, but Apple is suffocating its own products back by not ripping those apps out from the core of iOS and iterating faster. However, there are also plenty of things Apple Music offers for free such as Beats1, genre-based radio stations and the ability to follow artists on Connect.

Lately, opinions on streaming services are a lot like smartphones – everybody’s got one.

Consumer Watchdog, meanwhile, has charged Apple with attempting to drive out competitors and “unfairly dominate” the streaming music business.

Apple officials could not immediately be reached for comment.

Apple Music may succeed in the long run, but right now, choosing the best streaming music application should be a no-brainer. This is where Apple Music, as a whole, needs to improve.