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European Regulators to Review if Apple Acquiring Shazam Will Significantly Hurt Competition

ersan191 said:
The idea that people can't be bothered to take an extra few seconds to type the identified artist or song name into their preferred music subscription service does not warrant an international antitrust investigation.
Click to expand...

Well then please don`t let us stop you opening a real paper map and just look it up, no nonsense optimizations and time saving for you necessary; actually technology in general should be designed with some extra steps built in, just to make it fun.

ersan191 said:
Spoiler alert: No, it won't significantly hurt competition.

It's going to continue to identify songs, not having a button to open the song in Spotify afterwards is not exactly an international antitrust crisis.
Click to expand...

Actually that is the very definition of hurting competition.

1.Shazam has a dominant position, it`s ubiquitous for what it does for any user, that is just learning about it.
2.Apple buys this dominant position and uses it to promote only its service, or the ones it likes (a.k.a don`t pose a threat)
3. iOS 13-14 we`ll see how fancy they integrated in our fancy devices and probably still impaired Siri, while discontinuing the actual app on iOS and you guessed it, competing OSs. (probably in parallel it will be motived by the disillusioned or payed off team that disbanded)

*** From where exactly are those screenshots coming from? Because my Shazam Encore payed too many years to count ago, doesn`t list Spotify for quite some time. ***
 
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LovingTeddy said:
Base on Apple and its previous purchase, we will know that Apple will stop make Android version of Shazam. Which will negatively effect competition.

I will say though, if this transaction go through, one of the condition is that Apple will continue support Android version of Shazam.
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Little flaw in your conspiracy theory about the certainty of what Apple will do is that Apple Music is cross platform, so that doesn't make much sense. Dig deeper, the purchase was probably more focused on the AR technology that Shazam has.

The other thing you don't seem to appreciate is that this is a free enterprise system. "Negatively affecting" competition is what every company does. It's the whole point of competing. It's like saying Google buying Nest and not having it compatible with Homekit isn't fair because it negatively impacts Apple. Should the EU ban the sale of the Homepod because it so vastly superior to every other smart speaker and you need an iOS device to work with it, that it will negatively impact competition?

The EU is increasingly leaning toward socialism, so who knows, but with lots of alternatives like Soundhound, it's hard to believe even they would have a problem with this.
 
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df22799 said:
Well then please don`t let us stop you opening a real paper map and just look it up, no nonsense optimizations and time saving for you necessary; actually technology in general should be designed with some extra steps built in, just to make it fun.



Actually that is the very definition of hurting competition.

1.Shazam has a dominant position, it`s ubiquitous for what it does for any user, that is just learning about it.
2.Apple buys this dominant position and uses it to promote only its service, or the ones it likes (a.k.a don`t pose a threat)
3. iOS 13-14 we`ll see how fancy they integrated in our fancy devices and probably still impaired Siri, while discontinuing the actual app on iOS and you guessed it, competing OSs. (probably in parallel it will be motived by the disillusioned or payed off team that disbanded)

*** From where exactly are those screenshots coming from? Because my Shazam Encore payed too many years to count ago, doesn`t list Spotify for quite some time. ***
Click to expand...
You can't compare typing the name of a song to using a paper map, this is a stupid argument and literally the definition of a straw man.
 
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@truthertech your implied "accusation" that EU is leaning towards socialism, like socialism would be a bad scary thing is uncalled for. Just from that, I take it there`s a good chance you`re from US.

As for competition for hurting other companies I`d suggest you look finite game theory. Anti-trust laws and inquiries are not about reducing competition, they are about making sure there is no abuse from a dominant position.
 
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df22799 said:
Well then please don`t let us stop you opening a real paper map and just look it up, no nonsense optimizations and time saving for you necessary; actually technology in general should be designed with some extra steps built in, just to make it fun.



Actually that is the very definition of hurting competition.

1.Shazam has a dominant position, it`s ubiquitous for what it does for any user, that is just learning about it.
2.Apple buys this dominant position and uses it to promote only its service, or the ones it likes (a.k.a don`t pose a threat)
3. iOS 13-14 we`ll see how fancy they integrated in our fancy devices and probably still impaired Siri, while discontinuing the actual app on iOS and you guessed it, competing OSs. (probably in parallel it will be motived by the disillusioned or payed off team that disbanded)

*** From where exactly are those screenshots coming from? Because my Shazam Encore payed too many years to count ago, doesn`t list Spotify for quite some time. ***
Click to expand...


Lot of posters don't seem to understand what capitalism and free enterprise mean. If we took your position, then no company would ever be able to innovate, because that would hurt their competition. They also couldn't buy any company that had something unique. It isn't fair that Amazon bought "one click" ordering because that hurts every one of their competitors who don't have as convenient of ordering. A pharmaceutical company couldn't develop a cure for cancer, because then they would have something their competition doesn't.

It doesn't work that way, unless you are in a purely socialist or communist system.
 
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I agree with your point of view, just let`s move it forward a bit. We are talking anti-trust tactics.
[doublepost=1517951056][/doublepost]Coming back though, because it`s bugging me for quite some time, does Spotify connect with Shazam work for anyone? (especially like in the op screenshots)
 
df22799 said:
@truthertech your implied "accusation" that EU is leaning towards socialism, like socialism would be a bad scary thing is uncalled for. Just from that, I take it there`s a good chance you`re from US.

As for competition for hurting other companies I`d suggest you look finite game theory. Anti-trust laws and inquiries are not about reducing competition, they are about making sure there is no abuse from a dominant position.
Click to expand...



Don't want to get too political here, but there are no socialist countries in Europe yet. If you understand what socialism means, where there is no private property and the government owns and controls the means of production and goods, then there would be no tech companies, no Airbus, no Spotify, no Nokia, etc., because those were born out of, and exist only because of capitalism and free enterprise system. You decide how scary that would be for freedom , for technology advancements and for your particular economy.
 
Again agreed, no need to get too political, although it would make for a good discussion.
Socialism however (like any theoretical system, even pure capitalism) does not and will never exist. And the means of production are not government owned, they would be owned by a fully theoretic and dreamy democratic society.

Competition done with the desire to restrict the choices (now or future) of the customers/ citizens does warrant at least an inquiry if not a complete crackdown.
Your pharma examples have positive outcomes (eg. new medicine developed faster and cheaper than by a "public" system) but then if they are out-bought by a company that sees no benefit into having a positive balance also on the society not only on the balance-sheet, then you get expensive medication/ healthcare/ insurance with no end in sight without some oversight from the society in the form of (hopefully) competent government.
 
Wondering how this works. How does FB get to buy IG and WhatsApp but Apple cannot buy Shazam?
 
My guess would be someone grossly underestimated the amount of royalties Apple would end up paying to Shazam over the lifetime of their partnership via Siri queries. If the tech is solid and can bring more users into the Apple Music subscription, it makes sense to bring them onboard.
 
Probably buying for these two reasons:
- Siri integration with no more royalties
- Bringing people to Apple Music after they identify songs
I doubt they're taking Shazam away from Android, mainly because Apple Music is available on it too.
[doublepost=1517960701][/doublepost]
patent10021 said:
Wondering how this works. How does FB get to buy IG and WhatsApp but Apple cannot buy Shazam?
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I guess cause Shazam is based in the UK. Though the EU could get involved later on even if it were two US companies since they can impose restrictions on imports, like how they require MS Windows to make it blatantly obvious how you download Firefox or Chrome (pretty stupid imo).
 
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It may not only hurt competition, but i'm already geared up to remove the app since the matching Shazam users will likely be replaced via a much poorer process.

I may just leave it a bit, and just see, but i except this to happen. It's a shame, because i rely on Shazam all the time. .. There isn't much else that comes close.
 
LovingTeddy said:
Base on Apple and its previous purchase, we will know that Apple will stop make Android version of Shazam. Which will negatively effect competition.

I will say though, if this transaction go through, one of the condition is that Apple will continue support Android version of Shazam.
Click to expand...

Why does it matter? Android (Pixel phones) already display music that's ambiently playing on the lock screen without any sort of extra app.

I don't think the competition is as narrow as put forth.
 
Supermacguy said:
Does Shazam itself even have competition?
Click to expand...
In terms of number of users? No not even close.

In terms of functionality? Yeah there's SoundHound, MusixMatch, Genius, Google Sound Search, MusicID - in China there's QQ Music and WeChat has it built in. Until September there was also TrackID from Sony
 
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