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Norway Outlaws iTunes
haddieman notes that while many people are getting more and more annoyed at DRM, Norway actually did something about it. The PC World article explains: "Good intentions, questionable execution. European legislators have been giving DRM considerable attention for a while, but Norway has actually gone so far as to declare that Apple's iTunes store is illegal under Norwegian law.
The crux of the issue is that the Fairplay DRM that is at the heart of the iTunes/iPod universe doesn't work with anything else, meaning that if you want access to the cast iTunes library, you have to buy an iPod."
From a quick Google search:
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no, it's democratic government responding to its citizens.
Nobody is being force to buy iPods or use the iTunes store. When a government forces a company to change how it does business (which folks are free to ignore), regardless of whose behest they do it, it is totalitarianism.
Remember, Stalin and Hitler were both doing it "for the people".
And if I'm not mistaken, I think you've earned the "fucktard" moniker, but I'll need an "Amen".
The opposite of progress is congress
Then use Chevron. Nobody forces you to use Shell, or buy an iPod. I think it's silly. If the iPod doesn't do what you want it to, then don't buy the damn thing. I didn't. Regulating objects of fashion, that's great. I think I'll sue Gilbert Adrian because the Ruby Slippers only come in red.
What?
And just because I know who made them doesn't mean I'm gay
What?
"Norway has outlawed iTunes because you don't have the choice of what hardware from what company to listen to it on. It's Apples' players only."
By that reasoning the the entire OS X operating system is illegal in Norway. These countries just don't understand free market competition.
(Score:0, Troll)
humorless twit
What?
Yes, despite all those things, Apple is probably violating the ban on anti competitive linked sales. It is selling Tunes which it restricts to playing on its own players, when (and this is the critical thing) it is in EC law a monopoly, because it has more than 25% share.
Now, you may not like this, but before you get so excited about the unreasonable socialistic Europeans, start examining how US anti-trust and competition law work. Were you out there saying that IBM should be able to do what it wanted, and if people didn't want to buy from them they didn't have to, back at the time of the consent decrees and the compatibles? Were you out there at the time of the Carterphone decision, saying that ATT should be able to restrict as it wished what was connected to its network? Were you out there on the streets demonstrating in favor of Microsofts freedom to send whatever messages it wanted from the Windows 3.1 overlay to DRDOS users? After all, they could ignore them. Did you think MS should be able to charge OEMs for every computer sold, running Windows or not? After all, no OEM had to sign up for Windows. Did you support the right of various Third World steel producers to sell below cost in the US? After all, no-one had to buy it.
No, you did not. You were very happy for US anti trust and competition law to bite those guys, to bite them hard, and even to break up the Bell System in the end.
So what is different in this case? It is Apple, that is all that is different.
Cultists, who do not even understand the laws of their own country!