Hasta La Gadget!

Verizon Wireless is now offering free access to Apple Music. The music streaming service is available on select Verizon Wireless plans starting on January 17, 2019. Previously, Verizon and Apple offered a free 6-month trial to the streaming service.

The partnership comes as Apple is clearly looking for partners to help extend the reach of Apple’s services. Just last week, at CES 2019, multiple consumer electronic companies announced compatibility and support for several of Apple’s services including Airplay 2, HomeKit and iTunes video streaming services. This Verizon partnership further demonstrates Apple’s willingness to piggyback on another company to reach new users.

Verizon Wireless is America’s largest wireless carriers though it’s unclear how many users will have access to this service. The free Apple Music offer is only available to Verizon subscribers on select plans. Starting January 17, Apple Music will be included in Beyond Unlimited and Above Unlimited plans. For other users, a six-month trial is still available.

Wireless carriers have long looked to offering outside services to its subscribers to prop up their offerings. T-Mobile offers free Netflix and limited access to GoGo. Sprint gives subscribers free Hulu and Tidal. Sprint lets users on some plans pick from free HBO, Cinemax, Showtime or other services. Verizon is the first to offer free Apple Music.

Partnering with wireless carriers is a proven strategy to supercharge growth. Previously, Spotify used similar methods to introduce its service to customers. Others such as Dropbox followed. It’s a smart move: go where there are already customers. Wireless carriers offer service companies access to a huge range of customers from various demographic groups.

Going forward, it will be interesting to see if Apple discloses the source of Apple Music subscribers in quarterly reports. This deal will likely result in a massive increase of subscribers who are not paying for the service through traditional means.

Disclosure: TechCrunch is a Verizon Media company.

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One of the things that makes Epic’s Fortnite so relatable to the current generation is that it features and uses dance moves that are popular. However it seems that more than a few celebrities who helped popularize those dance moves aren’t too thrilled with Epic using them without their permission.

In the past we have seen the rapper 2 Milly, Alfonso Ribeiro, and Backpack Kid sue Epic for using their dance moves, and now it looks like we have another name we can add to the list in the form of the “Orange Shirt Kid”. It seems that the kid’s mom has decided to sue Epic for using her son’s dance move, known as the “Orange Justice”.

What’s a bit ironic is that in a way Epic didn’t actually “steal” this dance. What happened was that the kid submitted his dance move as part of Epic’s BoogieDown content which was a contest held to see which dance moves should be included in the game. While he did not make the cut, it seems that his dance move was so popular amongst fans of the game that a Change.org petition was started to get his dance move into the game, which it did.

Epic had also stated that part of the terms of the contest was that players who submitted their moves would not get paid, and that they had the right to use those moves for publicity of the game. That being said, we’re not sure if this lawsuit will result in anything because it has been mentioned in the past that dance moves are tricky things to copyright.

Epic Sued Again Over A Fortnite Battle Royale Dance , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.