Apple Tears into Spotify over 'App Tax' Protest

Tech giant Apple published a scathing response to music streaming service Spotify which recently filed an antitrust complaint against Apple in the E.U.

Apple appears to be refusing to take Spotify’s recently claims lying down, instead choosing to publish a scathing response letter to the music streaming service which recently accused Apple of anti-competitive practices in the E.U. Business Insider reports that in a recent statement, Apple harshly responded to Spotify’s antitrust claims, laying out the steps that Apple had taken to help Spotify in the development of its app and how Spotify benefited from the App Store.

“After using the App Store for years to dramatically grow their business, Spotify seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem — including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Store’s customers — without making any contributions to that marketplace,” Apple said in the statement. Apple also noted that in its complaint over the 30 percent “App Store Tax” Spotify failed to note that after the first year, this figure drops to 15 percent.

Apple stated that the only a “tiny fraction of their [Spotify’s] subscriptions fall under Apple’s revenue-sharing model.” The statement further added: “Spotify wouldn’t be the business they are today without the App Store ecosystem, but now they’re leveraging their scale to avoid contributing to maintaining that ecosystem for the next generation of app entrepreneurs. We think that’s wrong.”

Unhappy with simply ripping into Spotify’s complaints about Apple’s business practices, Apple decided to then take issue with Spotify’s treatment of music artists. “Underneath the rhetoric, Spotify’s aim is to make more money off others’ work. And it’s not just the App Store that they’re trying to squeeze — it’s also artists, musicians and songwriters,” Apple said. “Just this week, Spotify sued music creators after a decision by the US Copyright Royalty Board required Spotify to increase its royalty payments. This isn’t just wrong, it represents a real, meaningful and damaging step backwards for the music industry.”

Business Insider reached out to Spotify for comment but received no reply. Read Apple’s full takedown of Spotify here.