EU Countries Call Out iTunes DRM

seriouslywtf writes "Europe is upping the pressure on Apple to open up its restrictive DRM that ties iTunes to the iPod. Norway ruled last year that the iPod-iTunes tie-in was unreasonable and gave Apple a deadline to make a change to its policies, but was unsatisfied with the response they got. Now France and Germany have joined forces with Norway, making it a lot harder for Apple to just walk away from those markets. From the article: 'France's consumer lobby group, UFC-Que Choisir, and Germany's Verbraucherzentrale are now part of the European effort to push Apple into an open DRM system, with more countries considering joining the group. However, the company has been under some fire over the last year due to those restrictions, first with France and then Denmark looking to open up restrictive DRM schemes (including, but not limited to iTunes) ... Norwegian consumer groups were unimpressed by Apple's response. Norway has now given Apple a new deadline of September of this year to change its policies, and the pressure on Apple will likely grow in the months leading up to the deadline.'"

Comments

But in the US, we get the "PERFORM Act"

[sdo1]

What a great country I live in. Here we have legislators in the pockets of media companies proposing laws that would require DRM, but in Europe, the legislators (apparantly acting on behalf of the populus, which is what I thought the "of the people, by the people, and for the people" US government is SUPPOSED to do) are rightly saying that DRM is unfair to the people.

Is this a great country, or what?

Sigh.

-S

Re:But in the US, we get the "PERFORM Act"

[Experiment 626]

...but in Europe, the legislators ... are rightly saying that DRM is unfair to the people.

They are? It sounds to me like they are just trying to make digital music player makers, distributors, etc. license each others' DRM schemes to increase DRM interoperability. If they were saying that "DRM is unfair to the people", they could just ban it. That would also address both of their complaints (iTunes songs don't play on non-iPods, iPods don't play DRM-encumbered songs bought elsewhere) as people would use the MP3 format for songs, and it plays on everything.

Re:But in the US, we get the "PERFORM Act"

[rbarreira]

DRM is in its infancy and it's going to take awhile to get right.

In which get right means what? To be even more restrictive? Do you see that or you just have a lot of good faith in the companies and lobbies pushing for DRM?

On the whole I'd rather be here than anywhere else.

Enjoy it, and pray for the next DRM schemes not to be much worse. Personally, I'd rather have a government which cleans garbage which is bad for the consumers off of the market.

Why Apple?

[kevinbr]

Surely it is the job of the RIAA/Record labels to define an open DRM standard. After all they are the ones who demand DRM. Apple did not demand DRM on their own. Of course DRM suits Apple to tie users lightly into the iPod.

In any case, no user is actually tied - just burn a playlist on to a CD and copy the MP3's to any device.

Should Wallmart be forced to allow K-Mart to sell goods via the Wallmart checkout systems?

Wrong solution

[TheRaven64]

DRM, by definition, causes vendor lock-in. If DRM schemes were licensed under a fair and non-discriminatory policy then they would not work, because anyone who wanted to get around them would be able to get the specification. You could even legally create an open source application which did all of the rights checking inside #ifdefs so if someone defined the IGNORE_DRM symbol then they could compile a version that decrypted the DRM'd content but didn't apply any restrictions. This wouldn't even be illegal, since they would be distributing the version that respected the DRM and end users would be applying the modification.

The correct solution, then, is not for lawmakers to go after Apple, but for them to go after DRM in general. Except on books, where it makes perfect sense.

Re:WHy is this a problem?

[elcid73]

Or realize it but don't care. Last time I brought this up I got blasted by Slashdot because people seem to think that just because I don't want golden, infinite access to every track purchased since I was 5 years old that that somehow means I have horrible taste in music. Slashdot group thing seems to completely neglect the fact that a dollar for a track is worth it (to me) to get a good amount of use in a very convenient manner (where convenient means: purchase, sync, correct meta-data, no virus, searching, ethical dilemas,etc...) ...but if tomorrow I lose the song, I'm not going to miss out considerably. If I really like and want to keep something- I'd just go buy the whole CD. Or... just get over it. That 99cents is the price I pay for "easy"

Re:I don't get it....

[imsabbel]

I hope you are sarcastic...

That easily takes 15 minutes per cd (burning and ripping), and results in quality loss (as 128kbit AAC is good enough, but re-ripping to another format is a bit much).
The time aspect alone makes this route prohibitive...

Simple solution: Decriminalize breaking the DRM

[Jumperalex]

Without getting into the "correctness" of the EU's position ("just don't buy it" speaks loudly to me) I fail to see the issue here.

Instead of forcing Apple/et al to open up their standards, simply make it legal to break that very DRM if it isn't open. You will very quickly see applications for sale to do it (come out from the shadows) and the Apples of the world will be motivated to change to an open standard.

mhhmm

[jm.one]

1. Norway is not part of the EU. 2. I cant see how actually an EU country is doing something here.. only organizations that work in this countries.... Conclusion: Catchy but wrong title

Re:I don't get it....

[MartinG]

That's not a good analogy at all.

There is a good reason why screws are and drill bits are available in different sizes. Some jobs warrant larger screws (shelves that carry more weight, etc.)

Typically the user will decide the size required and drill a hole and buy a screw to match. The user _wants_ differing sizes sometimes.

Now, what is the reason I would _want_ to pay for some music that only works on a subset of playback machines? Or want to pay for a music player that didn't play any of my existing collection?

The people making screws in different sizes are not deliberately limiting what the user can do with them. It's the nature of them that creates a limit. Conversely, the nature of digital data is that it can easily be copied to other devices. It takes interference from the manufacturer to create artificial limitations. This is where the problems lies.