Apple's closed proprietary DRM system faces another threat across Scandinavia after three Nordic nations have jointly started action to force music download services to offer music that can be played on all digital music players. As most are aware, music bought from iTunes can only be played on Apple's own iPod series and Apple has already run into problems in the past, including being forced into making their DRM interoperable with rival players by proposed legislation in France up until recently, getting pressure from the BPI in the UK to open up its DRM to even protests carried out over its DRM.
Apple has received letters from Norway, Sweden and Denmark with set deadlines for which Apple must open its iTunes music to allow consumers to play back music on any player of their choice. Finland expects to start similar action also. Norway's deadline is June 21st and Sweden's is August 1st, however it is unclear what deadline Denmark has set at this time. Even though the opening of Apple's DRM is unlikely to affect its iTunes music sales, Apple previously announced that it actually profits on iPod sales and not the iTunes music store itself.
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Working together, Norway, Sweden and Denmark have sent letters to Apple setting deadlines for their demands. Similar action by Finland is expected. The three states argue that consumers, having bought music on iTunes, must be permitted to listen to it on other players, such as mobile phones. 'The consumer should be free to use their player of choice," said Mr Waterhouse. Norway has set a deadline of June 21 and Sweden August 1. |
If the Scandinavian countries succeed in getting music download stores to open up its DRM system to allow playback on all players, assuming Apple does not decide to pull out of the affected Scandinavian countries, it would be interesting to see how they would deal with this. If they offered their music as MP3, this would instantly solve the compatibility problem, but obviously would be against the wishes of most music industries due to no DRM. On the other hand, if Apple made its music available in several restricted versions such as WMA DRM, Sony's Atrac3 and so on to cover all the hardware DRM systems out there, they would face having to take on the licensing costs of using all these DRM formats. This method would not even fully solve the issue either since players that lack restrictive DRM support will still not be covered.
Source: Financial Times
