Is it true that VK is paid? Methods for connecting and disconnecting a VK music subscription

IN social network VKontakte will have new paid functions for listening to audio recordings, and the music section itself will be completely rethought. This was stated by representatives of the largest music majors - General Director of Universal Music Group in Russia Dmitry Konnov, General Director of Warner Music Group in Russia Alexander Blinov and General Director of Sony Music Entertainment in Russia Arina Dmitrieva during a round table at the VKontakte festival.

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 please you with new songs. On VKontakte this can be done for the price of a cup of coffee,” said Alexander Blinov.

- “VKontakte” is the only place on the Internet where music is closely connected with social interaction, people share playlists, send songs to each other. But now you can attach only 10 audio recordings, and this is only half an hour of listening, you need to increase it and make large, full-fledged playlists. But artists should have a description, all their singles, album breakdowns,” commented Arina Dmitrieva.

It is not known exactly when new opportunities will appear, but music rights holders promise until the end of this year.

We will test various monetization opportunities in collaboration with our major partners,” the VKontakte press service said.

The VKontakte press service also explained that testing will be carried out on separate application(where there will be only music), there will be no changes in mobile applications yet.

As for the cost of subscriptions, all three representatives of the majors said that it would be equal to “the price of a cup of coffee.” The subscription itself will most likely be implemented in a similar way to Apple Music and can be issued for a month, providing access to advanced features.

Currently in Russia, a subscription to Apple Music is 169 rubles per month. In April of this year it was reported that more than 13 million people bought a subscription to the service, and in January the number Russian users amounted to 300 thousand people. For one of the most popular Russian streaming services, Yandex.Music, a monthly subscription costs 149 rubles. At the end of last year, streaming services themselves overtook regular music sales for the first time. As reported in a study by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), revenue from all streaming services in the world in 2015 grew by 29% and amounted to $2.4 billion.

The head of the Yandex.Music business development group, Andrey Stebunov, told what Last year The audience of Yandex music services has grown one and a half times; now the monthly audience of the Yandex.Music and Yandex.Radio services is more than 20 million users. In his opinion, users appreciate good quality sound and convenience, therefore they are gradually abandoning pirated sites and services, choosing legal music applications.

People increasingly prefer to listen to music through services without downloading it to their devices. Many people like technology - recommendation technologies have learned to take into account the tastes of each listener and select music based on personal preferences. It looks like magic, but it works: the listener puts his likes and dislikes, and the technology takes into account his tastes and helps him listen to his favorite music and discover new ones,” commented Andrey Stebunov.

Music will also return to the social network’s iOS apps, when is also not specified. In February 2014 Apple of the Year removed the VK App from its store. The corporation is actively fighting piracy, so in order to return to the store, the social network had to remove the section with audio recordings from the iPhone and iPad applications.

On July 15 of this year, Mail.Ru Group, United Music Agency (the holding’s partner for interaction with copyright holders) signed an agreement with the third major copyright holder - Universal Music Group (previously signed with two others Warner Music Group and Sony Music Entertainment), and the social network VKontakte “signed a settlement agreement with Universal Music Group to resolve unresolved lawsuits (such agreements have also already been concluded with two others).

The press service of Mail.Ru Group reported that the concluded agreements provide access to licensed content from the world's leading record companies for users of all social networks included in the holding. That is, fees for audio recordings can be introduced not only on VKontakte, but also on the social networks Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir. Details of how much the subscription will cost and which features will be paid for have not yet been disclosed.

Director of Public Relations at the Federal State Unitary Enterprise Melodiya Firma Karina Abrahamyan said that people stopped buying albums and began buying subscriptions to music services because they are much cheaper. She believes that promoting music playlists, as is implemented in popular Western Spotify services and Apple Music is the most obvious step for the development of the music direction on the social network.

Last quarter, for the first time, we earned more from streaming than from downloading albums. An album costs on average 99 rubles, and a subscription costs about 169 rubles, that is, for the cost of less than two albums you can get access to all the music. Apple Music is actively developing, users are already ready for the subscription model, comments Karina Abrahamyan. - Playlists that have millions of listens are popular with users (because there is a lot of different music) and bring good income copyright holders. Starting from October, we will become the first Russian copyright holder - curator of playlists on Apple Music. Naturally, we will promote our audio recordings, but also add audio from other copyright holders so that the playlists become popular with users. Probably, VKontakte will do the same story, with editors and curators.

Hello, dear readers! August 11, 2016 at Play Store e and App Store Boom app appeared. It was created for listening to music on such popular social networks as VKontakte and Odnoklassniki. And since that time, VK developers began to limit users from listening to audio recordings for free, introducing more and more restrictions.

On this moment You can listen to music as a background using your mobile phone and the VKontakte application installed on it in just half an hour (then, when the device is locked, the music simply does not play). Also, the developers of the social network have disabled caching of songs and now they are not saved to the device, and, accordingly, you will not be able to listen to them without an Internet connection. While listening, audio advertisements appear.

What is the way out of the situation? Either switch to a competing social network, or subscribe and get rid of all restrictions when listening. Let's look at the second option, and consider what a subscription to VK music gives, how to buy it, and what to do if you connected by mistake this service, you don’t listen to songs, but money is debited from your card monthly.

Subscription

There are several options here:

1. Buy a music subscription using installed application on mobile.
2. Install Boom for Android or iOS and register it through this application.
3. Go to your page from your computer and have the VKontakte Administration send you a letter with a link. You just have to follow it and complete everything from the VK application on your phone.

From phone

If it is more convenient to subscribe on an Android phone or iPhone, then you only need the VKontakte application. There is no particular difference in the actions performed, so let’s take an Android smartphone as an example.

Open the application and go to your profile. Next click on three horizontal stripes in the lower right corner.

Go to Settings - click on the gear in the top right.

From the list of settings that opens, select “Music subscription.”

1. listening without restrictions and advertising;
2. saving songs for offline listening in Boom.

The cost of the service is 149 rubles/month, 109.99 UAH/month or $3.99/month for other countries. Before you pay, you will be asked to use your subscription for free. This period is 30 days. During this time, you can evaluate all the pros and cons, whether you need it or can do without it.

If you want to try it, click “Try for free”.

Now look carefully and remember the date on which funds will begin to be debited from you. This is necessary so that later questions do not arise, saying that you did not use it, the 30 days are over, and the money was automatically withdrawn from the account. If you don’t want to renew, you can cancel your subscription on Android or iPhone without any problems.

Click the “Continue” button.

The subscription is linked to the selected account. If you have a card connected to it, then monthly payment you can pay using it. If there is no card, then you must specify it at this step.

I should immediately note that even after connecting the card, the money will not be withdrawn. All promised 30 days will be free.

Now let's tell you a little about the Boom application. You can download it either from the Play Store or the App Store. It's free. After installation, you need to select a social network (in our case, it’s VK) and log in to your account.

You can subscribe to music there as follows:

1. Click on the note below. Then click on the button at the top right and select “Settings” from the list.
2. Next, click “Select tariff plan».
3. Opposite the inscription “BOOM-VK” click on the button with the price.
4. A small window will appear in which you need to click on the button to confirm. It may say “Continue” or “Subscribe”.

From computer

For those who are used to using a computer, you need to do the following. Go to the Music section of your profile. Then click on playback of a song by a popular artist.

If such a window appears, this is what we need. If not, then find another artist.

As you understand, without a subscription the user will not be able to listen to everything. Click "Find out more".

Then click “Subscribe”.

Open the dialogs and you will find a new message in them. It will contain a link. You need to navigate through it from the application installed on your phone. Well, all subsequent steps will need to be done from your smartphone. I wrote about them above.

The advantage of this method is that they will send you a ready-made link and you won’t have to look for where to connect your subscription.

How to cancel the use of the service

If you decide to just try out the feature and don’t plan to buy anything further, then you need to unsubscribe, since the money will be specified card will be debited automatically on a certain day, regardless of whether you use the service or not (you don’t have to log into VK at all). You can cancel your subscription on Android, iPhone or Boom.

If you have the first option, then go to the Play Store and open the side menu. Then go to the “Subscriptions” section. Find “VKontakte” in the general list and click on the “Manage” button opposite. Delete your subscription.

For iPhone owners: go to “Settings” – “iTunes and App Store” – then “Apple ID”.

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 fact that the changes affected appearance and section functionality, in mobile version social network has introduced a paid subscription to save audio recordings offline and listen 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 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 Evgeny Krasnikov. 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 for Android users, disappears, but the social network will save the list of the 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 Mail.Ru Group, 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 to Boom app. “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.

On currently Boom is only relevant for mobile app users, and no paid subscription is required to listen to music via the web version on your computer. As for third party applications offering to save music on VKontakte for free, necessary measures were already accepted by the social network in December 2016 - then VKontakte disabled the ability to search for audio recordings through software 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 your favorite music without restrictions. Music is an important part lives of VKontakte users. Today we are launching a completely updated service and beginning a new stage of its development,” said VKontakte Managing Director Andrey Rogozov.

The design of the My Music tab is similar to previous version 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.

appeared in the center fast access to playlists that 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 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.

Well, the freebie is over, social media owners. VKontakte networks nevertheless took such an unpopular step; from October 2017, listening to music became limited to 1 hour. But this limitation applies only to . On your computer, you can still enjoy your favorite tracks as much as you like. There is a need to bypass the music limitation.

Quick navigation:

Limiting music listening on VK

You have to understand that the developers took such a step not out of their own greed. The social network VK has long been under pressure from copyright holders, record companies, and all those whose songs we listened to for free. Just now we have come to some kind of compromise, so as not to close all the music due to massive copyright infringement.
According to plans, in the future the restriction will become even stricter and the free listening time will be limited to 30 minutes.

For the first month, the opportunity to play music will be free, you just need to link your card, then after the first month, trial month, 149 rubles will be debited from your card.

How to bypass music listening restrictions on your phone

A lot has already been said about how to subscribe, and the creators have taken care of this, you just need to link the card. But how can you bypass the VKontakte music limit? We will talk about this further...

Bypass music restrictions on Android

Bypass music restrictions on iPhone

Listening to music with a paid subscription is, of course, very convenient, but what if you don’t want to pay, even if you have an expensive iPhone?
This is where work applications come in handy (See).

Downloading music from VKontakte to a flash drive

Music on a flash drive from VKontakte, very convenient way listen to music for free. A flash drive with music can be listened to in a car, player and phone.
The most in a simple way, downloading music to a flash drive will happen if you first go to Vkontakte from a computer in a browser and use (See).

How to bypass the music limit on VK without programs

There are at least 2 ways to not limit listening to music from your phone on VK, without using third-party applications and programs.

• 1 - Open VKontakte in mobile browser, follow the link m.vk.com/music, music from your page will open, turn on listening and if your phone goes into the background (the screen goes dark), the music will still be played without a limit.
• 2 - Listen to music without locking the screen, i.e. do not go into the background.

Disable screen lock on your phone

As you know, the restriction on listening to music from your phone only applies in background. In other words, if the phone will be charging, for example at home or in a car, then it makes sense to disable the sleep mode function (See). Moreover, both on an iPhone and on a phone with Android OS, you can thus bypass the 30-minute time limit. to listen to music on VK.

With the resignation of Pavel Durov from his post general director VKontakte, a social network, has seen changes that are unpleasant for users. One of them was the restriction on free listening to music in mobile application and the inability to play without an Internet connection. At the testing stage, the time was limited to one hour per day, and later it became 30 minutes per person per day.

You can remove the restriction by connecting paid subscription for your account. After purchase, in web versions social network, audio advertising disappears while playing tracks.

How to connect a subscription

Subscription is available in the “Boom” mobile application, and not in the VK interface; this was one of the conditions of the content copyright holders. The application is available for the Android and IPhone platforms, and the subscription cost is 149 rubles per month for residents of the Russian Federation and $2.99 ​​for other countries.

By connecting to a subscription, you receive:

• Listen to music without restrictions (both in the application itself and in the social networks themselves);
• No audio advertising;
• Possibility of loading tracks into the cache (not to be confused with) and listening in “offline” mode.

Now that we’ve figured out the basic principles of how the proposal works, let’s move on to the practical part.

The connection is not fundamentally different on IOS and Android, so we will consider it on the basis of a more mainstream product.

The service is activated when payment information is filled in in the settings Google account Play (AppStore in cases with IPhone). Money will be debited every month from your bank card, at the end of the billing period.

1. Open the official website of the application on your smartphone – boom.ru and select the required platform.

2. After installation, open the application and log in to the required social network. networks (on this moment Odnoklassniki and VK are supported).

3. Everything is available to you standard features section "Music", but with restrictions. To connect to the service, go to settings and click “Select tariff plan”.

4. Click on the indicated button to proceed to payment and confirm your desire on the page Play Market.

5. After successful payment, on the settings page you will see detailed information about the remaining paid period, and private messages VKontakte will receive an additional notification and a set of free stickers.

Currently valid promo action, upon payment, you receive a month of free service.

In addition to the described method, when purchasing special sim VKontakte cards, you will also get unlimited possibilities when listening to music.

How to unsubscribe

Sooner or later, you will be faced with the question of disabling your subscription, because you could have activated it by accident or were simply tired of monthly charges.

You can delete the service in the “Boom” application itself and directly in Google settings Play.

1. Open the application on your mobile, go to settings, click “Change tariff plan” and then “Manage subscription”.

2. You will end up in Play settings Market, where from the proposed list, you must select “Subscriptions”. Among active services, select Boom and click Control.

3. In the pop-up window, click “Cancel”. If you refuse, all paid days will expire and restrictions on listening will reappear.

You can get to the specified page from Google menu Play.

It’s sad to understand, but in the future we will have even more paid functions in VK and this depends not only on the “greed” of copyright holders, but also on the appetites of Mail.ru Group.