The Norwegian Consumer Council, Forbrukerradet, lodged a
complaint with the Ombudsman on behalf of Norwegian consumers
claiming that the Fairplay DRM system acted against the interests
of consumers. It said that the fact that the technology stopped
songs bought from iTunes being played on any player other than an
iPod broke the law in Norway.
The Ombudsman has now agreed, according to Torgeir Waterhouse,
senior advisor at the Consumer Council.
"It doesn't get any clearer than this. Fairplay is an illegal
lock-in technology whose main purpose is to lock the consumers to
the total package provided by Apple by blocking interoperability,"
Waterhouse told OUT-LAW.COM. "For all practical purposes this means
that iTunes Music Store is trying to kill off one the most
important building blocks in a well functioning digital society,
interoperability, in order to boost its own profits."
Waterhouse said that the Ombudsman has written to Apple to say
that it believes that Apple's Fairplay system is illegal. "iTunes
Music Store must remove its illegal lock-in technology or appear in
court," he said. "As of right now we're heading for a big
breakthrough that will hopefully pave the way for consumers
everywhere to regain control of music they legally purchase."
The Consumer Council believes that Apple has only three options:
it can license Fairplay to any manufacturer that wants iTunes songs
to play on its machines; it can co-develop an open standard with
other companies; or it can abandon DRM altogether.
The Ombudsman has also backed the Consumer Council's claim that
the DRM technology is not simply a copy protection scheme. The
Council had argued that in restricting consumers' use of music so
heavily the technology broke contract law in Norway.
"The Ombudsman has confirmed our claim that the DRM must be
considered part of the contract terms and not a copy protection
scheme only," said Waterhouse. "This means that under the Norwegian
Marketing Control Act the DRM must provide balanced and fair rights
to the consumer when they purchase music form iTunes Music Store
and similar download services."
"Apple is aware of the concerns we've heard from several
agencies in Europe and we're looking forward to resolving these
issues as quickly as possible,” Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr told AP
news agency earlier this week. “Apple hopes that European
governments will encourage a competitive environment that lets
innovation thrive, protects intellectual property and allows
consumers to decide which products are successful.”
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