Something is happening in the iPad publishing world that has music subscription services worried. Depends on who you talkto, but we now know that Apple is moving to require magazines to block non-app subscription payments. Meaning, magazines (or newspapers, or whatever) will no longer be able to collect their own money and data for iPad subs—rather, they must direct customers through Apple's in-app billing mechanism. And of course, Apple then takes its healthy, 30 percent (plus) cut.
This gets complicated, especially when bundled, multi-platform subscriptions are involved. And the iTunes rules are apparently quite a maze. But this is already drawing anti-trust interest from Brussels, and it's also drawing some nervous attention from music subscription services. “We're watching it, because [Apple is] testing things here," one CEO of a well-known music subscription service told Digital Music News at Midem. “It they force 30 percent on an app subscription, we can't afford it."
Stay tuned.
This gets complicated, especially when bundled, multi-platform subscriptions are involved. And the iTunes rules are apparently quite a maze. But this is already drawing anti-trust interest from Brussels, and it's also drawing some nervous attention from music subscription services. “We're watching it, because [Apple is] testing things here," one CEO of a well-known music subscription service told Digital Music News at Midem. “It they force 30 percent on an app subscription, we can't afford it."
Stay tuned.
