According to the publication Izvestia, the Mail.ru Group holding plans to introduce a paid subscription for audio recordings on the Vkontakte social network by the end of this year.

The reason for this step was the company’s efforts to legalize music content on the social network and the signing of a number of agreements with the largest foreign and domestic labels.

The music content itself can still be consumed for free, however, based on the words of the CEO of Warner Music Group in Russia, Alexander Blinov, Vkontakte will introduce a number of paid functions.

- You can listen to the audio recording for free, but a number of new paid functions will appear - for example, adding an audio recording to yourself. If you love performers, you should support them. And musicians must earn money in order to delight you with new songs. On VKontakte this can be done for the price of a cup of coffee.

The cost of a “cup of coffee” is also a very vague metric. There is a high probability that Mail.ru, together with copyright holders, will follow the path of Apple Music, where a subscription is issued, for example, for a month and costs 169 rubles. The company is also being pushed to take such a step by the success of the services of its main competitor in RuNet - the audience of Yandex.Music and Yandex.Radio (subscription cost 149 rubles) numbers about 20 million people.

Now the innovations are being tested on individual applications. For now, the changes will not affect mobile platforms, and after the introduction of subscriptions, audio recordings will return to iOS applications, from which they were removed back in 2014 due to Apple’s position on combating copyright infringement.

Copyright holders and representatives of Mail.ru promise that you can still listen to music on VK for free, but, apparently, only through searching for specific compositions. To access playlists of a specific artist or for the ability to create your own list of preferred compositions, already in 2017 you will have to pay.

For the first time in ten years, the social network “VKontakte” carried out a large-scale update of the “Music” section. In addition to the changes affecting the appearance and functionality of the section, the mobile version of the social network now has a paid subscription for saving audio recordings offline and listening to tracks without advertising.

Listen for free, save for money

The function of saving music in a cache for later listening offline has migrated to the Boom mobile application, which offers a fixed tariff for 149 rubles. per month. With it, an Android or iOS user gets unlimited access to tracks and also gets rid of audio advertising.

Boom also has a free plan - it allows you to save up to an hour of music, but only works for the first 90 days. In addition, it also contains audio advertising.

“You can still listen to music on VKontakte for free,” emphasized VKontakte press secretary Evgeniy. He told Gazeta.Ru that Boom is an application of the social network’s partner, United Media Agency (UMA).

In 2016, VKontakte and United Music Agency signed partnership agreements with leading international music rights holders Universal Music Group, Warner Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Merlin Network and others. It is reported that the integration of Boom into the system for listening to audio recordings on the social network occurred at the request of copyright holders, who stated that listening to music offline cannot be free.

Krasnikov clarified that music caching, previously available to Android users, disappears, but the social network will save the list of tracks themselves in such playlists so that users do not lose it. They can be listened to when connected to the Internet.

The Boom application was created by United Media Agency together with, so that a paid subscription immediately applies to three social networks that are part of the holding: VKontakte, Odnoklassniki and My World.

The press service of Odnoklassniki confirmed to Gazeta.Ru that from today the social network allows you to listen to music without the Internet through a subscription in the Boom application. “Free listening to music online remains completely OK: both in the web version and in our mobile applications - in this case, copyright holders will receive royalties from advertising,” the press service of the social network said.

Odnoklassniki also announced their plans to update the Music section this year.

At the moment, Boom is only relevant for users of mobile applications, and a paid subscription is not required to listen to music via the web version on a computer. As for third-party applications offering to save music on VKontakte for free, the necessary measures were already taken by the social network in December 2016 - then VKontakte disabled the ability to search for audio recordings through the application program interface (API).

Musical consultations

In addition to introducing paid functions, VKontakte tried to make the music section more practical and functional.

VKontakte united people with diverse musical preferences, gave them the opportunity to communicate, create thematic communities, search for rare tracks and distribute their favorite music without restrictions. Music is an important part of the life of VKontakte users. Today we are launching a completely updated service and beginning a new stage of its development,” said the managing director of VKontakte.

Updated “Music” section on VKontakte // Press service of the social network

The design of the My Music tab is similar to the previous version of the section and includes the same elements: a track to listen to at the top of the page, a list of audio recordings and a search by friends on the right side.

The center now has quick access to playlists, which can now be shared on the wall or in private messages.

The section now has a “Recommendations” tab, which combines several services at once: a “smart” system of personal recommendations from VKontakte, which takes into account the user’s musical tastes, friends’ music, a list of new tracks and albums, as well as community playlists.

In addition, the user can now view friends' updates in news feed mode - the name of the audio recording and the time at which it was added.

The VKontakte company decided to make money on music that users themselves upload. But it turned out... So-so. The article will help you decide whether it’s worth paying money for a subscription, or whether it’s better to switch to other services.

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Not long ago, the popular social network Vkontakte introduced a fee of 150 rubles for full use of its music. Which reflected poorly on her in general. I believe that this streaming service has no right to take money for this and now I will try to explain my point of view and make it clear why you should NOT buy a subscription to VK MUSIC.

People haven’t bought music in Russia for a very long time. Durov himself even spoke about this. This has become a kind of tradition. As soon as the first Internet appeared, everyone immediately began recording music on recorders, CDs, anywhere, just not to pay. Music in terrible quality, with low bitrate - all this was with us before Vkontakte. After the advent of VKontakte, music finally began to normalize. The quality is not the best, but at least some. The average bitrate on VKontakte is 258 kb/s. And so, when everyone started uploading music to VKontakte, and not to a disk, recorder or anywhere else, copyright holders began to complain. Discs are no longer needed, cassettes have lost popularity, and recording music on a dictaphone no longer makes sense. After the advent of smartphones, the meaning of disks completely disappeared. Why buy music on CD if it is available for free on VKontakte? And you don't even need to download! Copyright holders began to complain even more. Sales have fallen and the main profit for everyone is the sale of merch and performances. After that, streaming services appeared, which allowed both performers to make a profit and users to listen to music online. Streaming services offered excellent quality at an affordable price. But the quality on VKontakte still remains from the time of 2010.

But now they have begun to demand money for this quality. WE'RE LIKE EVERYONE else. But the analogues are clearly better. And this is the main mistake of VKontakte.

Music is uploaded by the user himself

Yes, this is exactly how VKontakte works. VKontakte is in the same position as it was in 2010. All music is uploaded by users. And the social network itself plays the role of cloud storage. All music is uploaded without the permission of any artists. It is downloaded by users. Yes, the social network has signed several agreements, but at the moment, no money is being paid to the performers, and there is still pirated music. How strange is it that we pay for pirated music? That's exactly what it is. At the same time, in analogues, for example, in Apple Music, most of the amount goes to the performer, and not to the company, as is now happening on Vkontakte. This is a serious problem. Because when you buy a subscription, you are not supporting the artist. This is the same as continuing to download pirated music, but paying for downloading it. In addition to all this, you pay for the fact that you loaded it there yourself.

Quality remained in 2010

Same price as analogues

Yes, indeed, 150 rubles is not that much. Every student can afford this price, but is it necessary?

If you look at analogues that have been on the market for quite a long time, you will notice that Apple Music and Google Music offer much more for exactly the same price. And at the same time, you will receive good quality music that is uploaded by the artist himself. You get covers for the tracks, a convenient application, good quality music, lyrics for almost every track and licensed music. Apple Music also has discounts for students; a subscription for students will cost you 75 rubles/month. Hah, do you need VKontakte music after this? Don't know. At the same time, by paying for a subscription to similar services, you support the artist. By paying for a subscription on VKontakte, you support piracy in its purest form.

1. Firstly, the price. VKontakte’s price is almost the same as that of all streaming services, but there are fewer features and worse quality.

Google Music- 159 rubles per month.

Apple Music- 169 rubles per month. If you are a student, a subscription will cost you 75 rubles per month.

Yandex.Music- 169 rubles per month.

Spotify- 570 rubles per month. You can cheat and buy a subscription through the countries of Malaysia and the price will be 160 rubles. (Account may be blocked)

As you can see, in terms of price, of course, VKontakte wins, the difference is not great, only 20 rubles. But considering the student subscription that comes with Apple Music, for a student, Apple Music is the best choice for a school student.

2. Music quality.

Google Music- 320 kb/s, in MP3 format.

Apple Music- 256 kb/s, AAC format. (256 kb/s AAC format = 320 kb/s MP3 format)

Yandex.Music- 320 kb/s, in MP3 format.

Spotify- 320 kb/s, in MP3 format.

In terms of music quality, all services are already ahead of VKontakte. For the same price, VKontakte offers a range of music from 92 kb/s to 320 kb/s. Is VKontakte worth the money? No.

4. Licensed music database.

Google Music- 30 million tracks.

Apple Music- 43 million tracks.

Yandex.Music- 17 million tracks.

Spotify- 30 million tracks.

Alas, there is no licensed music on VKontakte. At the moment, VKontakte is only signing contracts with different companies. But at the moment, all VKontakte music is pirated.

In addition, there are a ton of remixes in the VKontakte database, which pollutes the music database. As I wrote above, among the music you find useless remixes of “BY VASYAN” and music that has the wrong name. Wrong covers, or music without covers at all.