Apple has hit back at Spotify's EU antitrust complaint, saying the music streaming service "wants all the benefits of a free app without being free."

The Cupertino, California, tech giant was responding to Spotify's assertion on Wednesday that Apple uses its power over the App Store to unfairly limit rivals to Apple Music, its own music streaming service.

"After using the App Store for years to dramatically grow their business, Spotify seeks to keep all the benefits of the App Store ecosystem -- including the substantial revenue that they draw from the App Store's customers -- without making any contributions to that marketplace," Apple said Thursday.

It's a very public spat between two dominant forces in the way people listen to music. With 96 million paying customers, Spotify is the world's biggest subscription streaming music service by members. (Including all the people who listen for free with ads, Spotify counted 207 million people using its service at least once a month at the end of 2018.) Apple Music, with 50 million subscribers, is its closest competitor.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek had complained that Apple makes digital services "pay a 30 percent tax on purchases made through Apple's payment system." Apple countered that the revenue sharing at that level only applies during the first year of an annual subscription -- Spotify, it said, "left out that it drops to 15 percent in the years after."

Apple also pointed out that a huge number of Spotify's customers opt to stick with the free version of the app, which is supported by ads, or are on premium plans promoted by mobile carriers, neither of which brings in any money for Apple.

"Even now, only a tiny fraction of their subscriptions fall under Apple's revenue-sharing model," it wrote. "Spotify is asking for that number to be zero."

Ek also asserted that Apple blocked its "experience-enhancing upgrades," partially in reference to a 2016 incident.

"We've approved and distributed nearly 200 app updates on Spotify's behalf, resulting in over 300 million downloaded copies of the Spotify app," Apple wrote in response. "The only time we have requested adjustments is when Spotify has tried to sidestep the same rules that every other app follows."

Apple took issue with Ek saying Spotify and others had been locked out of services like Siri, HomePod and Apple Watch. It suggested the ball was in Spotify's court regarding the Siri digital assistant and the HomePod smart speaker, saying it's reached out "on several occasions" and has been ready to help out on adding support whenever Spotify requests it.

"We found Spotify's claims about Apple Watch especially surprising. When Spotify submitted their Apple Watch app in September 2018, we reviewed and approved it with the same process and speed with which we would any other app," Apple wrote.

"In fact, the Spotify Watch app is currently the No. 1 app in the Watch Music category."

Spotify declined to comment on Apple's response.

First published March 15 at 3:11 a.m. PT.
Updated at 4:43 a.m. PT: Adds more details.