VKontakte and Odnoklassniki introduced a fee for background listening to music for more than 60 minutes a day

For those who like to listen to music in social networks from a smartphone, the freebie is over. From October 1, 2017, they will either have to download files from torrents, or go to a desktop computer, or pay owners to 149 rubles. per month.

The VKontakte and Odnoklassniki social networks included in the Mail.ru Group holding introduced paid access to background music listening (that is, with the screen locked) for more than 60 minutes a day. In the near future, the limit will be reduced to 30 minutes. The restriction applies to the VKontakte and Odnoklassniki mobile apps, as well as the Boom mobile app. Users of the desktop web version can still listen to music without restrictions. Perhaps the same applies to alternative versions of clients, because the paid limit was implemented in the latest versions of the official applications VKontakte and Odnoklassniki.

This was reported by Tassrepresentative of United Media Agency (UMA), which mediates between the Mail.ru Group and the copyright holders. The mediator noted that this is “an unprecedented step on the part of the right holders towards the users,” since other streaming services completely and simultaneously disconnected the free background listening.

The introduction of paid listening to music was hardly a surprise to anyone. More than a year ago, UMA and Mail.Ru Group signed partnership agreements with Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Merlin Network and other rightholders. It was clear that the American studios would not see through their fingers how the largest Russian social networks distribute their intellectual property to the right and left for free. It has now become known that the introduction of paid access is part of the agreements reached last year.

But Mail.ru resisted to the last. Back in November 2016, Dmitry Grishin, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Mail.ru Group, promised that “in general, users of social networks will always have the opportunity to listen to music for free”. The press service said that the basic functionality of listening to music will remain free. As a result, Mail.ru Group still managed to bargain for 30-60 minutes of free listening in the background and other benefits.

A paid subscription to music in the VKontakte and Odnoklassniki mobile apps appeared in April 2017. At the same time, the function of listening to tracks from the cache disappeared from the mobile application for Android.

From 2013 to 2015, the playlist from VKontakte could be transferred to Yandex.Music, but then the social network turned off Yandex access.

A new restriction on the background listening to music caused widespread dissatisfaction with the users of VKontakte. Some of them make it clear that music was the basic functionality of a mobile application, and rightholders "encroached on the sacred."