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ITunes Overcharging in the UK
KennyMillar writes "The BBC is reporting that the OFT (Office of Fair Trading) has ruled that Apple is overcharging for iTunes downloads in the UK. They have referred the case to the European Commission for a ruling. One important note is that UK iTunes customers cannot buy from the French or German iTunes Stores, and this goes against European Freedom of Trade rules. A spokesman from OD2 agreed that people in the UK should not be charged more than customers in the Eurozone. I've emailed Apple asking for 20% refund on all my downloads, but I won't hold my breath!"
Tell can charge exactly .99 euro in all or europe and .99 cents in America. Of course that means the europeans are being overcharged, but that doesn't violate euro policy as its still consistant throughout Europe.
If the IP providers object, they can be easily taken to court, everybody's happy.
If only it were that easy. There is no actual law that says IP providers have to offer the same price as IP providers in other EU countries. (There is an EU directive for each country to pass laws to that effect.) And a license to music is contingent upon your location under laws in most EU member states (Thanks to pressure from the U.S.). The problem is that the UK council is not seeing is that according to EU law, Apple is offering different services in each country, even though the end result for the user, is the same song. This is further complicated by the fact that although their end user license says you can only buy from the country in which you reside, their only control is through the address listed for the credit card, so the UK authorities are seeing it as credit card based.
On the other hand, if they only sell *from the US server*, then do they really need to license in each country?
Yes.
The artist will still get paid, right, whether the purchase comes from the US store or the UK store. Right?
No. The copyright holders might be different in different countries. It's not unusual to sell one's rights in something to different people domestically and abroad. Plus, copyright isn't (and shouldn't be) standard worldwide.
You should be allowed to buy from wherever the hell you please.
The problem being that this can undercut domestic policies. E.g. if you can buy from a country with no copyright law, then the copyright law in your own country becomes pretty worthless.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
Wouldn't the same principles forbid use of CSS to charge different prices for DVDs in different regions?
No, because there's only a single DVD region for the EU (and even other countries outside the EU, like Switzerland).
The iTunes case is about different prices inside the EU. A German guy is free to buy a car in Spain. A UK resident can't buy a song from the French iTMS. That's likely to be illegal.
England is not the UK. In fact the labour governement is still 'considering' the Euro, but given that Gordon Brown (not English), likely the next Prime Minister, is hostile to it a switch doesn't look likely in the short term. Eventually I imagine they'll have to switch over to the Euro - it's certainly quite handy for frequent travellers within the EU and for businesses.
The prices have never been equivalent to the exchange rates (not even close). The UK store has consistently been more expensive. This is probably because the record companies think they can get away with it (as they do with CDs), not because of exchange rate difficulties.
It's really a bit of a farce that they're forced to have different stores in different countries anyway. Apple would probably prefer to just have one store and let the user change their language/music preferences, but the music companies have too much to lose from allowing a global marketplace in their IP, so they're trying to hold out as long as possible.
As with regional DVD encoding it'll probably die a quiet death somewhere between 2010 and 2020.
The problem is that Apple does not give you a choice about which country you use. If you're registered in the UK, then you can only purchase songs from the UK iTunes site. This is what is against EU regulations.
"When I grow up, I want to be a weirdo"
The problem is not that Apple charges more in the UK than in the EU - they are absolutely allowed to do that. What they are not allowed to do is ban people in the UK from buying things from the various EU stores (and as a by product, that means that we in the UK may be able to get cheaper songs from the EU store).
Bob
The thing is not that they charge different prices really, but that they won't allow someone from the UK to shop from France. Hence, the result is that they end up having to pay more. That in itself is not the problem, is it a result of it. If the ones supplying Apple won't allow it, then Apple simply can't make a deal with them.
I can go and order a book from a French bookshop over the net, I then pay what someone in France would (possibly higher postage). The French shop can't say I must go to their Swedish shop (regardless of if it costs more or less). Nothing actually prevent them from having a shop in Sweden charging more of course, it is another issue.