VKontakte and Odnoklassniki lowered the limit on background music listening to 30 minutes per day

At the request of copyright holders, from October 1, 2017, VKontakte and Odnoklassniki were forced to set a limit of 60 minutes for free background listening to music in official mobile applications. At that time, United Media Agency (UMA), which acts as an intermediary between the Mail.ru Group and rightholders, noted that this is “an unprecedented step by rightholders towards users”, since other streaming services completely and simultaneously disconnected free background listening. And here left 60 minutes. But UMA immediately warned that in the near future the limit will be reduced to 30 minutes.

On November 1, the social networks fulfilled their promise. Now the free limit has been reduced to 30 minutes. Unlimited access through a subscription Boom still costs 149 rubles. per month. To continue listening to music for free, you need to either switch to unofficial mobile apps, or to old versions of official clients, or to a PC, or sit with an unlocked phone. But these are all temporary methods that can be deactivated at the request of the right holders at any time. Still the surest way to do it is to listen to the free MP3 files that you saved locally.

It is quite possible that in the future, the possibility of free background listening will be turned off altogether: “None of the world’s streaming services provides an opportunity to listen to music in the background for free,” a UMA representative told Vedomosti.

The reaction of ordinary users who did not save their collections in advance in MP3 was expected:
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Until 2016, VKontakte sued Universal Music, Sony Music and Warner Music, but then signed a settlement agreement and agreed to introduce paid access to music. In July 2016, UMA and Mail.Ru Group signed partnership agreements with Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Merlin Network and other rightholders.