“Major record companies are forcing Apple to curtail access to iTunes online stores across borders, leading to higher prices and less choice, the European Commission said on Tuesday,” David Lawsky reports for Reuters.
“The EU executive sent formal charges to Apple and the major record companies last week because consumers can only buy iTunes in their own countries and cannot shop around for cheaper prices and a broader catalogue in other states. ‘Our current view is that this is an arrangement which is imposed on Apple by the major record companies and we do not see a justification for it,’ Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd told reporters,” Lawsky reports.
Lawsky reports, “The world’s major record companies are Vivendi’s Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, EMI Group and Warner Music Group… ‘Apple are the managers of the iTunes store. It’s true that the focus is the major record companies,’ Todd said.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bill M” for the heads up.]
Related articles:
Apple, music labels face European Commission antitrust probe – April 02, 2007
EU says probe of Apple’s UK iTunes Music Store limited to pricing, not interoperability – March 22, 2006
European Commission probes charges that Apple iTunes Music Store is ‘ripping off’ UK consumers – February 25, 2005
I’m looking for recommendations. I just want to set the two hd’s up right to run a regular home system as well as possible. Thanks for the apple.com/support link.
Sure, an iTunes for all of EU would be great I suppose, but it isn’t necessary, and unless something illegal is going on, I don’t see why labels should be forced into merging all countries together, and acting like it is one market, since they are not all one country but the EU likes to make them as such – thus gaining more power and control over them…
And let’s hear it for another fsckwit who knows nothing about the European Union and its rules.
Actually, the Single European Act of 1986 established the concept of a single market for both consumers and companies: consumers benefit as companies can no longer prevent customers from one nation-state purchasing from another nation-state where prices are cheaper, and companies benefit from no longer having customs tariffs apply when goods move between member nation-states.
Companies benefit additionally as it is only necessary to set up one operating base in the EU in order to serve a market of over 350 million people. Apple Inc. itself benefits by establishing the European base of iTunes (iTunes S.A.R.L) in Luxembourg in order to benefit from the Duchy’s low rate of sales tax. Without this benefit, Apple (actually, their customers) would be paying 17.5% sales tax in the UK as opposed to just over 6%.
Numerous companies have fallen foul of Single Market regulations including the auto industry (which used to regularly fsck over consumers in the UK), the pharmaceuticals industry and the airline industry (which liked to fsck consumers everywhere); it would now appear that the European Commission has decided that the music industry represents another market which is in need of reform and – given the EU’s ability to make company’s lives miserable (ask Volkswagen) – I’d save myself the grief and fold up my tent now.
As I explained in another thread earlier today, the music industry has avoided the effects of the Single European Act for over two decades by using the local rights collection societies as proxies.
I suspect that the EU has now decided that having duplicated rights enforcement and collection processes running in over 20 parallel operations runs counter to the public good and has decided to finally deliver on a three-year old promise to harmonise the market and make it easier for new competitors to enter the market for the good of consumers.
Companies benefit additionally as it is only necessary to set up one operating base in the EU in order to serve a market of over 350 million people. Apple Inc. itself benefits by establishing the European base of iTunes (iTunes S.A.R.L) in Luxembourg in order to benefit from the Duchy’s low rate of sales tax. Without this benefit, Apple (actually, their customers) would be paying 17.5% sales tax in the UK as opposed to just over 6%.
I think you’re not entirely correct here. Apple will benefit from the lower corporate taxation in Luxembourg, but every title sold to a customer in a specific country will still contain the local VAT which has to be passed to the government of the customer’s residence.
Pretty certain I’m right.
If my company sells goods to a company in France, it pays the VAT at my rate and then claims it back from the local revenue agency and if my company buys goods, the same applies in reverse. It’s the basis for so-called carousel fraud.
For instance, if I buy things from Apple in Ireland – which I have done – the VAT rate is utterly different to the 17.5% rate in effect in the UK. The same goes for MSFT.
“MacLeod’s Law” states: If there is something you don’t understand, chances are good that someone is putting money in their jeans.
[i”]It’s true that the focus is the major record companies” – Jonathan Todd, EC spokesman.
BBC News 24 has been running this story all day, with the focus (i.e. the blame) on Apple, not the record companies. Only once did I hear a commentator suggest that the record companies forced this upon Apple.
I really do respect most of what the BBC does, but their anti-Apple stance is blatant and embarrassing.
Interestingly the MS fanboys at the BBC Website give this story a much more Apple negative slant – *ankers
Big News! A CD in Switzerland is about 12 Euros, in Germany 15 and in the UK maybe around 20 Euros. So why not sue here as well.
Bad analogy. If I go to Amazon France and order a CD at French prices, Amazon will still sell it to me. Same with any other Web-based CD or DVD retailer in the EU.
Only the “new” digital music market has this postcode restriction, which is why the Commission is keen on getting rid of it.
@Shogun….
here’s what you do…
if you have a G4, G5, or MacPro.. and this is going to be an internal HD…
turn the mac off & unplug it, open the mac, touch something metal on the case of the computer to discharge any static electricity, plug in the extra hard drive in the hard drive bay to the computer cable and the power cable, close the computer, turn it back on.
if this is going to be an external HD you are going to use with any mac…
take it out of the box, plug in the firewire or usb cable to the mac and the other end to the new HD, plug in the power cable, turn it on.
Your Mac will see either HD automatically. There’s nothing to set up.
MCCFR:
Fragging hell!
Finally someone (among others) talking sense on MDN about the EU and their regulations and wading through all the euro-bashing bullshit around here. Cheers for that!
(Sorry. MDN is great at defending Apple and the Mac passionately and vigorously, but some comments here are just ridiculously blind to any kind of reality outside of the US.)
(Hey, and I like the USA… it’s just got the same amount of morons like any other country in the world – which just makes it more human, I guess.)
(MDN Magic Word: “people” – like in, we’re all people, everywhere. – Wow, how does MDN DO that!?!?)
Well, it’s a well known fact, Sonny Jim, that there’s a secret society of the five wealthiest people in the world, known as The Pentavirate, who run everything in the world, including the newspapers, and meet tri-annually at a secret country mansion in Colorado, known as The Meadows.
So who’s in this Pentavirate?
The Queen, The Vatican, The Gettys, The Rothschilds, *and* Colonel Sanders before he went tits up. Oh, I hated the Colonel with is wee *beady* eyes, and that smug look on his face. “Oh, you’re gonna buy my chicken! Ohhhhh!”
@EU Blows,
what is your point? making fun of conspiracy theorists? making fun of states becoming united?
Record levels of concentrated wealth is not a conspiracy but a sad fact, but also the Elite’s goal.
The EU is merely a region trying to compete with other large economic markets, i.e., the US and China.
All governments lie.
MW=people, perhaps we’ll develop a system that puts people and life first instead of capital.
p.s. Apple, as usual is the scapegoat. Let’s hope truth and common sense prevails.
I love the arrogance of some of the Americans on MDN, especially the person who thinks all the record labels are from the USA! Duh.
EU: We don’t like the DRM lock-in on your products.
APPLE: Okay. No problem. (waves a magic wand) Now watch it slowly disappear before your very eyes. We cool now?
EU: You don’t seem to understand. We are the bosses of you. Now as long as you are listening, clean our toilets here that we couldn’t get our own media companies to touch with a ten foot pole. Here, use this toothbrush. And by the way, the media companies have all the toothpaste, and we couldn’t get any out of them, so you’ll have to work it out with them yourself. Good luck!
APPLE: Okay, we’ll get right on that. Anything else you want us to do? We can actually run your government for you if you wish. Here, look, you can do it all from iTunes…
EU is an excisting bureaucracy: twenty five different voices that are forced to speak with one tongue. Apple is blamed for innovation and the moguls do not want that ..
Sorry non-US people, there are plenty of morons here in the US, and for some reason they only like to talk trash. People that have at least visited and talked with people in several other countries aren’t so stupid about other countries. And here in the USA where I’ve come across more than the necessary share of morons, I know they don’t really speak for anyone but themselves, just like when I’ve come across morons in the UK, or other countries, I know they don’t speak for anyone but themselves as well.
BTW, do you in the UK, EU (or anywhere else for that matter) have the equivalent of Rush Limbaugh? Or is he one of those “Only in America” possibilities? He has a lot of followers over here that hang on his every syllable, and for some reason they think that makes them “smart” and even more ridiculous, “independent thinkers”! LOL
hmmm… Magic word “theres” as in “there’s a lot of nonsense out there.”
“Sure, an iTunes for all of EU would be great I suppose, but it isn’t necessary, and unless something illegal is going on, I don’t see why labels should be forced into merging all countries together, and *acting like it is one market*…”
This just shows how ignorant some Americans are about the EU and its purpose. According to them, free trade is now socialism!
Ron Robertson: thank you for your sensible words. Even though the loud, ignorant few of Americans annoy me, I know not all of them are like that.
Now to your question, I really can’t say. As far as I know, there are no local Rush Limbaughs in the UK, Nordic countries or Germany. Can’t really say about Eastern and Southern Europe, but I doubt it. Ironically, France might have one, at least they’ve got the far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen. The mentality of the uberpatriotic, self-centered sect of the French is very much like their counterpart in the US.
The nearest thing we have to a Rush Limbaugh in the UK is someone like Nick Ferrari (not a made-up name honest).
However, Nick is – in reality – just a bit of a grumpy old man who believes that politicians are thieves and charlatans who need to be taken out the back of the bike sheds and given a sound thrashing. Given that many of them went to private schools, this would simply be a nostalgic experience and would serve no purpose whatsoever.
All you children stop bickering and play nice.
It’s almost time for milk and cookies anyway.
MCCFR, your response gave me a good laugh!
Am I confused in thinking that in the UK a private school is the opposite of what it means in the USA? For us a private school is one that one pays to attend, and a public school is free. Someone told me that it’s the other way around in the UK.
Captain Europe, Thanks! I’d thought perhaps Le Pen was similar, and may even have a similar following to Limbaugh, percentage-wise. I know that none of my French friends have ever had a kind word to say about him. Still, I have doubts that he’s the equivalent of “ditto-heads” in France, who basically parrot everything he says (you can tell they’re parroting because they never have even a remote semblance to a cogent argument for why they think what they do). I’ve not seen much “lock-step agreement” elsewhere as I’ve seen here amongst sizeable segments of the population.
Appropriately enough, my “magic word” is ‘language.’