Last
week, consumer agencies across Norway, Sweden and Denmark wrote to Apple asking
the company to make changes to its software to allow consumers with any brand of
MP3 player to be able to take their purchased iTunes music on the move with
their player. The original deadline which was June 21st has been extended to
August 1st.
According to the consumer agencies, they claim that
Apple's standard customer contract violates Norwegian law and that it is
unbalanced and at a disadvantage towards to customer as iTunes' copy protection
prevent customers from playing their music on any third party MP3 player besides
its own iPod series. This issue will likely be brought to court and if
Apple loses its case, it may fined and have to leave the Scandinavian
countries.
The consumer agencies in the three countries last week "We know our Norwegian colleagues are prepared to take |
With this longer extension, it will be interesting to see what Apple comes up
with to try and counteract this problem. They seem to have already
succeeded in France after having talks with the French lawyers and the senate to
get around their
proposed legislation, however let's see if they can find a way around their
Norwegian issue. The music industry continues to insist that DRM is the
ideal solution, but for everyone else, it is as useful as having a
pesky fly that will not stay still enough to swat!
Source: Reuters - News
