iPhone call from Norway
Written by Kostas Tzounopoulos   
Thursday, 25 January 2007
Norway consumer groups will force Apple to open up the FairPlay DRM used on iPod and iTunes or take them to court. Should we count Europe minus Norway on the upcoming Zune release also ? ...

iTunes to be legal in Norway, should open up until 1st October. If Apple selects not to do it, it can be taken to court, get a fine or even close iTunes down and move away from Norway. The reason for this is iPod's incompatibility with content purchased from any other online store using DRM and iTunes content incompatibility with any other player.  But except Norway, this can be the beginning of similar actions in EU countries:

Torgeir Waterhouse, senior adviser to the Norwegian Consumer Council, who originally launched the complaint, told the Financial Times he was in negotiations with pan-European consumer groups to present a unified position on iTunes' legality.

Sweden and Finland have already backed Norway's stance, but have yet to take action, and Mr Waterhouse said the campaign was joined yesterday by Germany and France.

Zune uses a similar model to the iPod. Content purchased from other online DRM stores can't be played on Zune but Zune MarketPlace tracks can be played on PlaysForSure devices. This is not supported officially and it could stop working in the future (if there is a future for PFS DRM). But its a small difference between the two systems which may be used by Microsoft to bypass problems Apple is facing.

Read more: FT.com  

Last Updated ( Thursday, 25 January 2007 )