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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:
Experience Nokia Nseries multimedia smartphones, featuring exclusive content from cutting-edge designers, artists and generally mobile people.
That's right, folks, get ready for nTunes! With Apple out of the way, the Communist Republic of Norway can now provide DRM free music to its entire population. A pox on capitalist economic competition, that crap didn't work in the 70's and 80's, and it's...oh wait... (I'm not saying that DRM is good, I hate it. But if the governments of the world would get out of the damn way and consumers would stop being fussy crybabies and vote with the pocketbooks like they should, DRM would go away a LOT faster. Open source doesn't exist because the government made people use it. Open source works because smart people at competitive companies (IBM) found that, with the right model, it actually *is* better.)
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
1) Buy song on iTunes ...
.mp3
2) Drop it in a playlist
3) Menu: File => Burn Playlist to Disk
4) Import
5) Profit!
Or,
1) Buy song on iTunes
2) Menu: Advanced => Convert selection to
I'm sorry, this is only a problem for morons. Since this is coming from Norway, I'm guessing that living in the dark must make your brain shrink or something.
If you have an iPod, buy from iTunes.
If you have a Zune (all 12 of you) buy from MS.
Or even better, buy the CD, avoid the DRM altogether, rip it at higher quality than you can buy online, and stash the CD in your closet.
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?
> I can tell you're an expert on Norwegian constitutional law,
Don't care. The hallmark of socialists everywhere is lies and doublethink. I'm sure there still lots of remnants of a nice system of laws on the books. And lip service is paid to them when it serves the interests of socialism. Reality differs from the printed version. Much like it does in America, only our Republic still has a small chance of being restored to the limited role it should have. The Democratic (Socialist) Party here hasn't yet swept away the last remnants of the Old Republic. Not yet.
Of course were one of the Founding Fathers to be somehow risen from his grave there ain't a Congresscritter, Justice or President who has served in the last generation that said Founder wouldn't have a hankering to shoot dead for breaching his Oath of Office on an almost daily basis. And not many Citizens he wouldn't want to horsewhip for letting the bastards not only live but get reelected. Unless he just said "Screw you guys I'm going back to Hell."
Ok, I'm getting off on a rant. Heading back ontopic.....
No nation of laws based on individual liberty and justice could forbid a willing buyer and willing seller from exchanging things of value in a private transaction that aren't harmful substances, state secrets or something else truly exceptional. It's just SONGS people.
Democrat delenda est
"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!