Scandinavians to meet Apple over iTunes

Sweden's consumer rights agency will discuss complaint that iTunes service breaches consumer laws.

The story "Scandinavians to meet Apple over iTunes" published August 16, 2006 at 12:40 PM is no longer available on CNET News.

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[fwpgreg]

Whiners. All Whiners.

If I made really cool vacuum bags and they only worked in my
vacuum, no one would care one bit.

This entire campaign against iTunes/iPod is driven by sore losers
resorting to grass roots mayhem to coerse governments to
legislate a way for them to compete with inferior products.

Utterly ridiculous.

[60AmpRelay]

bzzzzt. Wrong, but thanks for playing!

The issue is that Apple is restricting what customers can do with a product after it has been purchased. Based on the article, it seems that this is illegal in Scandinavia.

[unknown unknown]

RE

What's ridiculous is the belief by some Apple fan boys, that Apple should be above the law in others countries where it chooses to business. The laws in Sweden and Norway were in effect before Apple decided to setup shop with iTunes. It's very simple, follow the law or leave. Apple can make the necessary changes, goto court, or leave.

[J.G.]

The wrath of pale people. . .

wil be felt if Scandinavian governments force Apple to close iTMS in
their countries. That anger will be directed at those governments,
not at Apple. The overwhelming majority of people who use iTMS
to purchase digital content knowingly consent to the terms.

[djcaseley]

But...

I'd personally rather buy from a seller whos selling in accordance with the law!

That aside of course, I've got a digital music collection, some from cd's, some from the store, but I dislike the iPod. There are 3 options for me: Suffer with an iPod, suffer without iTunes, or wait until Apple opens up its formats so that I can use a player I like with the music I purchased.

[nzamparello]

Funny

See, here's the thing I don't get.. Everybody is saying that iTunes music should be compatible with other players... You know what!?! It is... What's so hard about burning your music to cd in iTunes and then ripping back to mp3!? Whoa!!! Strange concept...

[jabbotts]

your absalutely right

Any techno-weenie can burn an audio CD then rip it back to there prefered format. Oh, but not everyone is as steeped in uber-geekdom.

I can't explain a simply directory/file structure for sorting workload to most "average" users; you think they're going to take the extra three steps to flip there music from .mp3 back to .mp3?

[sidewinder]

Re: Funny

How is it funny that someone wouldn't want to:
A) Waste money on the physical format needed to do this
B) Waste time needed to burn and rip the songs when there should be no real need for it
C) Lower audio quality because of the transcode
D) Possibly (depending of the software used to rip the burn't disc) having to retag every song

[Hardrada]

3 reasons why not

Lossy compression, cost and effort. Sure, you can do it, but converting from one lossy compression format to another reduces the audio quality even further. Add to that the cost of the physical media and the effort to move it back and forth and you'll see why a more open DRM scheme (e.g. playsforsure) or no DRM at all are better.

People seem to think that Apple is doing them some sort of favor here - Apple makes money from every overpriced iTurd it sells, and as bad as RIAA is, I'm sure their DRM requirements don't require Apple to restrict playback to Apple only products.

I'm not a fan of government intervention in of IP issues, but Sweden gets to manage this as Sweden sees fit.

[TysonDB]

You have a choice.

OK I'll start off by saying I hate DRM as much as the next guy but the fact of the matter is that itunes isn't the only store out there and the only way to get music. I have an ipod and only made the "CHOICE" of buying one after researching what I could and couldn't do with it. Most people, at least those with some intelligence, know that when you buy an ipod or songs from itunes they go hand in hand and you will be limited to a degree on what you can do with them. This pretty much goes for any music store or music player that offers or plays protected files most being way more restrictive than itunes on what you can do with the files. This is again why I chose itunes. Yes it does suck that one if not the only way around the DRM is to burn CDs of the protected files and then rip them back, but at least you have the option to do so, which again is another reason why I chose itunes. After all the news that has gone into the great DRM debate its hard to believe that anyone would blindly dive into the online music purchasing game without knowing that there will be some restrictions on their music. Yes this sucks but if you don't like DRM you can always buy CD's. I have to date bought over 300 songs from itunes mostly singles with only 6 being full length albums because I chose to buy CD's which can be ripped to any music player easily, included itunes, and played on pretty much any mp3 player including the ipod. No one is forcing anyone to buy from itunes or an ipod. The ipod although a nice mp3 player, is not the be all and end all of MP3 players. At almost any given day of the week CNET publishes more than a few dozen or so ipod and itunes alternatives.

However to get back to the Scandinavian point it is good that the government is taking a stand based on it's laws to protect it citizens. But like most people who have bought into itunes they did so knowing that they would be limited by the DRM. Apple in no way has tried to hide this fact. And on a second note its not just Apple that should take "SOLE" blame for the DRM since the record companies have also made it pretty much manditory that online music purchases contain it. If Apple is found unlawful they should be made to close thier stores, which they'll probably do anyway since both France and Scandinavia combined ammount to only a small fraction of the itunes overall music purchases, and not be forced to open up thier intellectual property. Bottom line if you buy into the online music game as it stands there will be limitations. It's easy to get mad at the top dog because it's the biggest target but thats the way they have chose to offer their products and services. If you don't like it buy another mp3 player and use another online store or buy CD's it's that simple.