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EU Commissioner Slams Music Lock-In
Nonu writes "EU Commissioner for Consumer Protection Meglena Kuneva has come out against DRM lock-ins like Apple's iPod-iTunes combo. Kuneva said she believes the tie-in that keeps music bought from the iTunes Store from playing on MP3 players other than the iPod was unreasonable. '"Do you find it reasonable that a CD will play in all CD players, but an iTunes song will only play on an iPod?" asked Kuneva. "It doesn't [seem reasonable] to me. Something must change."' The EU is in the midst of an effort to harmonize its consumer protection laws, and along with the question of DRM tie-ins it is also looking at mandating cooling-off periods during which customers could 'return' downloaded music."
Because if she has, she would know that Jobs himself opposes the DRM scheme. The reason they are using it is because of the very strict rules the music industry has imposed on them when it comes to file security and making sure the encryption will not be broken.
Jobs said that making all the songs on the iTunes store playable on different devices is possible, but giving out the encryption system to 100 different device makers without any overwatch is simply asking for disaster. Code has been leaked before (DVD discs anyone?), and this would be no exception.
It's not so much Apple's fault, because it's the music industry that said they cannot share their iTune songs, OR the encryption to play them on any other device, otherwise their license to sell online music would be revoked.
The magical number is: 09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
EU based companies *cough* Philips *cough* LG *cough*
LG is not European [You've made some Korean's very happy thinking so tho']
Why just fight against DRM for iTunes, and not DRM for everything? If the EU commisioner was really fighting for consumer rights here, it should be all DRM'ed anything, music, movies, electronic books
They are looking at DRM on all music - its just Apple's the biggest DRM dealer/pusher around at the moment.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.