“Norway’s Consumer Ombudsman has filed a complaint with Apple’s music download sales service iTunes, arguing that the transaction terms violate Norwegian law. The move is the latest step in Scandinavian skepticism towards the successful service’s protection system of songs sold for use on Apple’s massively popular iPod player,” Joacim Lund and Jonathan Tisdall report for Aftenposten.
“Sales at iTunes are downloaded in a format expressly designed to be played on iPods, and if users want to play their music in another format on another advice after purchase, they must violate their agreement,” Lund and Tisdall report. “Consumer Ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon told TV 2 that Apple iTunes would either have to change their practices in Norway or pay fines.”
Full article here.
“Apple was reported to Norway’s Consumer Ombudsman earlier this year by The Consumer Council of Norway, an independent consumer rights organization. The Consumer Council complained that the iTunes Music Store’s terms and conditions and DRM violated Norway’s Marketing Control Act,” Peter Cohen reports for Playlist.
“The group called FairPlay ‘an unreasonable technical term of use, in so far as it prevents purchasers of music files at iTunes from using other MP3 players than iPods. The sole purpose of this type of DRM is to lock consumers into buying products from a dominant market player.’ The group said in its complaint that Apple’s terms of service for using the iTunes Music Store expressly forbids users from circumventing the DRM, and said that such a restriction is forbidden under Norway’s Copyright Act,” Cohen reports.
Full article here.
We’ll comment as soon as we finish playing our Norwegian-bought Xbox games on the PlayStation we picked up in Oslo; right after we download some songs from MSN Music Norway that play on our Macs and iPods. But, first, we’re going listen to Apple iTunes Music Store-purchased songs on our Motorola SLVR mobile phone.
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Related articles:
Consumer Council of Norway files a complaint regarding Apple iTunes Music Store’s terms of service – January 27, 2006
Apple’s vs. Microsoft’s music DRM: whose solution supports more users? – August 17, 2005
Before there was ‘Lock In’ to any company’s devices there was the demand by The Music Labels for DRM on every music file sold over the Internet.
Many people the world over conveniently forget that salient fact.
Apple chose a DRM method that is in the iTunes software not in the music file itself. Thus anything sold on iTMS has DRM.
This was all done before any hint of device ‘Lock In’.
Remember that people!
You don’t want me to come over there.
Apparently they are enjoying all of the oil money in Norway:
http://pub.tv2.no/nettavisen/english/article250240.ece
Maybe someone can educate the Norwegian people about the unfettered marketplace as it relates to Apple products.
Well, when I heared about on the Norwegian news last night i made a report myself to Forbrukerombudet. I asked them to investigate a Norwegian internet musicstore for forcing me to Windows as they require Microsoft Media Player which isn’t available for Mac.
I do find it unacceptable that a dominant OS supplier (have more than 95% marketshare in Norway) is allowed to force me to buy a PC when I’m fully satisfied with my Mac. Going to be interesting to see the respons…
The legislation is not targeting iTunes Music Store DRM as such, but defines “relevant equipment” and gives consumers the right to break copy protection schemes i.e to play a CD with a copy protection mechanism on a PC. This definition is also extended to digital music files.
Microsoft DRM and others are also in line to be tested against the same legislation. Full story here.
On one hand, I will always take the side of ALL DRM IS BAD DRM, because it restricts the consumer from using the products of their choice.
For example, in two years, if I want to use a different mp3 player than the iPod (though I certainly don’t forsee that happening), then the hundred or so song I’ve downloaded from the iTMS will need to be burnt to CDs. If I continue to buy at the rate I do now, that will be a lot of CDs.
But, at the same time it annoys me that no one ever mentions the fact the Microsoft, Real, etc. uses DRM, too. They’re just as bad, if not worse!
Same country that is currently hosting thepiratebay.org, and blotched the Holloway investigation. Yeah…..
Jeff,
Because (thankfully) I know absolutely nothing about Windows and its DRM schemes, may I ask you this?
Can a song that I might purchase on a friend’s PC be moved to–and then play on–my iPod?
Are there ANY WMA-based music sites that will connect to/work with my Macs?
If, as I assume at this point, that the answer to both of the above questions is NO, then where does Norway or any of the complainers on this site get off criticizing Apple?
Also, some of the biggest restrictions of DRM comes from the major record labels themselves, not the company (Apple, Microsoft, Real) that makes the DRM.
Virgin Records doesn’t want non-DRMed music out there. No one ever points that out.
My CDs don’t play in my cassette player. Who do I sue?
Everyone here should remember just one thing:
All DRM architecture is mandated not by Apple or Microsoft, but rather by . . .
RECORD COMPANIES! RECORD COMPANIES! RECORD COMPANIES! RECORD COMPANIES! RECORD COMPANIES! RECORD COMPANIES! RECORD COMPANIES! RECORD COMPANIES! RECORD COMPANIES!
Crap on THEM, not AAPL and MSFT
Violate what agreement? iTunes lets you change the AAC format to several others. If this was not part of iTunes then these features would not be included. Don’t these people have anything better to do than whine about stupid stuff.
DAMN THOSE VIKINGS!!!
Oh yeah, sure… “I’m a VIKING, I can burn and pillage wherever I WANT! Oooh, I’m sorry, I can’t hear you! I’m binging and purging!!!”
Oh yeah VIKINGS?!? I’ve never heard of a Viking Astronaut? Ya think you’re such hot shit. I just played you out…bitches.
John:
“Violate what agreement? iTunes lets you change the AAC format to several others. If this was not part of iTunes then these features would not be included. Don’t these people have anything better to do than whine about stupid stuff.”
That’s hardly a valid comparison at all. Protected .aac cannot be converted using the software unless you “trick” it by burning the songs to CD, then re-ripping them.
…that Apple iTunes would either have to change their practices in Norway or pay fines.
breakdown or shakedown
*Apple pony’s up the bribe money.*
Luke
Stare onto you hand, in a few million years you MIGHT evolve a thumb.
What a loser
em de itoon sumisc stewr es goode. eu con birn ur muzic en empeethree fourmatt und den ree-eemport… bork, bork, bork!
My gut reaction: As soon as MS market share in Sweden is whacked by 50% for whatever reason they can find, then I’ll feel comfortable calling iTMS and related products “dominant market players” in the context of an excuse to levy fines for unfair or unreasonable business practices by the terms of Norway’s MCA.
Sheeesh – give me a break.
This is nuts!
Will someone explain to me WHY countries think they can argue about things like this? I’d really like to know.
To me – it seems like Sweden can sue me for not making pink feather dusters because I only make blue ones.
I realize it’s an over simplification – but if I have a product that is popular – but you can get essentially the same thing from someone else (only not as good) – why attack the popular item?
Please explain without resorting to political stereotyping!
“Please explain without resorting to political stereotyping!”
You’re asking a lot from this bunch, friend.
“Will someone explain to me WHY countries think they can argue about things like this? I’d really like to know.”
Countries are free to have their own laws. They should be applied to all the music download services, sure, but they can do what they want.
I think the US copyright laws that curtail for digital downloads the actions that fell under fair use for casettes and vinyl are ridiculous. I believe it is silly that burning to CD to remove DRM, then moving to to a crappy Creative mobile player is a violation of the license agreement. I think the US law should be changed to make that fair use.
MDN : poor choice of comparison with the SLVR. Not all SLVRs are born equal in that in USA yeah sure you can use it to play iTunes tunes. Not here, for some reason, Moto have disabled this (among others) feature in this region.
MW : age
” That’s hardly a valid comparison at all. Protected .aac cannot be converted using the software unless you “trick” it by burning the songs to CD, then re-ripping them.” – duper
Yes, it can. Do you know there are softwares to remove the FairPlay without CD-burning tricks? The fact that it is illegal to do so has something to do with the country’s legislation. So fix your laws first before you blame others.
What’s next? I want to run the superior Mac OSX on a crappy Dell computer? Do we sue Apple or Dell for that?
I want to play lasertag on Whitehouse property, but they arrest me every time I try. Time to sue the us govt.