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."

Comments

Re:Burn The iTunes Tunes To CD and Rip Them Back

[Viceroy Potatohead]

iTunes is extremely convenient. If I want just a song off of an album, I'll pick it up from Apple. But I also burn all the songs to a CD and then rip them back at high quality into mp3's.

Not half as convenient as allofmp3 was... If I wanted a song off an album, I'd pick it up from allofmp3. I never had to rip to CD and back, and I could chose my bit rate. Now that was convenient. I really don't see how Apple couldn't do the same thing. There's no way they have legal protection against enabling-copyright-infringement (or whatever) by requiring one to burn to cd and back. That's just a pointless inconvenience.