Apple won’t have to pay royalties for some performances of songs that are already in listeners’ iTunes libraries, or songs that might be on an album that a listener owns just part of. Similarly, “Heat Seeker” tracks selected by iTunes for special promotions, are also exempted. Apple also doesn’t have to pay for songs listeners skip before 20 seconds have elapsed. The company only gets to avoid paying royalties for two songs per hour for any given user.
via The Princeton Macintosh Users’ Group (PMUG) http://feedly.com/k/11JJzKg