Sources: European Commission failed to find evidence of collusion between Apple and major music labels to quash free music streaming services
EU Finds No Evidence of Apple and Music Labels Colluding to Kill Free Music — The European Commission failed to find evidence of collusion among …
Context & Ripple Effects
In 2015 the European Commission quietly closed one front of its Apple inquiry: sources say it failed to find evidence that Apple and the major music labels had colluded to suppress free streaming tiers. That mattered because free tiers were then the main competitive threat to Apple's download business, and a collusion finding would have been explosive.
The case did not die — it migrated. After Spotify's 2019 complaint, the Commission charged Apple with antitrust violations over forcing rival streaming apps onto its in-app payments system, and by 2024 was preparing a roughly €500M fine over access to music streaming services, which Apple answered by casting Spotify as the ruling's "primary advocate" and "biggest beneficiary".
First-order effects
- Apple escapes the narrowest version of the threat — a collusion charge with the labels — leaving its download-store relationships formally clean while Spotify and other freemium services remain without a regulator-backed explanation for label behavior toward free tiers.
Second-order effects
- Spotify's route around the dead-end becomes the App Store itself: the 2021 charges over in-app payment requirements recast the dispute as a platform-tax problem, culminating in the planned ~€500M fine and Apple's counterattack framing Spotify as the case's biggest beneficiary.
Third-order effects
- The arc from collusion investigation to platform-rules enforcement points regulators away from backroom-deal theories and toward the structural economics of app distribution — where gatekeeper control of payments and steering, not label contracts, becomes the durable battleground.
The trend: Music-streaming antitrust has shifted from investigating collusion between platforms and content suppliers to regulating how app-store gatekeepers tax and constrain rival services.