Apple’s music streaming service might not have a free option

Streaming music for free is incredibly easy, even when you do it legally. That’s something that the big music labels want to put a stop to and Apple is more than happy to help them. One of the ways the company hopes to do this is by making its own music streaming service, which will reportedly be launched later this year, a completely pay-to-play service, meaning there won’t be any ad-supported free options. 

Right now it’s easy to stream any song you want, whenever you want, legally, without paying a penny. The big music labels want that to change. Apple says it wants to help them. Apple executives have been telling the music industry it can help them roll back the tide of free digital music by relaunching its own subscription streaming service this year. Unlike Spotify and YouTube, Apple’s service won’t offer a free “tier” of music interspersed with ads — after an initial trial period, you’ll need to pay to play. Apple executives, led by media head Eddy Cue and Beats Music founder Jimmy Iovine, have been arguing that the music business “needs to get behind a paywall,” say people who have talked to them. Apple bought Beats last year, partly to help it gain a foothold on streaming music just as iTunes sales of digital downloads had started to drop.