14 DAY TRIAL // The Norwegian consumer group was far from satisfied by Steve Jobs' excuses. The Apple CEO stated in an open letter on February 6 that the digital music industry is to blame for the restrictions placed on playing rightfully bought audio material. He also said they will not open their digital rights management solution, FairPlay, and that he thinks losing the whole DRM protection is the way to go.
"iTunes Music Store and others are unfair to consumers no matter how many download services follow the proprietary approach", says the senior advisor at The Norwegian Consumer Council. Mr. Torgeir Waterhouse is convinced Apple and all other retailers who use proprietary solutions bear the blame for not allowing customers to do what they please with their music and play it on whatever device they want. Still, he admits that labels are not free of blame, since they are requiring the use of DRM solutions in digital music sales.
A group of three Scandinavian countries, alongside other European states such as France, Germany, Finland (Italy may also join in), formed an alliance that is threatening to take legal actions against Apple for wrongfully selling audio content that cannot be played on all digital devices, this being in violation of the law. If Apple is the company selling the music, then they are "responsible for offering a fair deal according to Norwegian law", says Waterhouse.
The European customer groups are requesting that Apple license their proprietary digital rights management software to other companies in order to be fair to buyers. Unless Apple changes its mind, that's not going to happen. So, it looks like we're waiting on the music labels, to see whether they react. As I was saying earlier, it seems that EMI is the first company that would be willing to lose the DRM.