14 DAY TRIAL // I guess even the huge Apple fans agree with me as I ask the following question, taken from a recent statement made in Berlin on Sunday: "Do you think it's fine that a CD plays in all CD players but that an iTunes song only plays in an iPod?"
These words belong to Meglena Kuneva, the European Union consumer chief and were addressed somehow directly to the computer and software giant.
Now, everybody knows that Apple had quite a rough time in Europe during the last months, all due to the eternal problem of tracks from iTunes not working on other portable players than iPods. Europe supports Steve Jobs & Co. in their war against the over-discussed Digital Rights Management, yet at the same time, European consumer policies look like they are being a bit trespassed.
Shortly, the EU Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva has made some statements directly related to the state of facts between the EU regulations and the Apple's commercial policies as far as online music sales through the iTunes service are concerned.
Even though the European Commission has more or less openly made clear its point of view, this time (since Ms. Kuneva was rather strict) a Commission spokeswoman in Brussels confirmed Kuneva's words but said they were an expression of the commissioner's personal views, not those of the Commission.
Helen Kearns, the spokesperson in question also declared: "I don't think she was stating it as a definitive policy position. At this stage it is her gut instinct."
As I guess all of you have guessed, the EU and its organizations have nothing against Apple; but since Ms. Kuneva's task is to review every piece of data in order for some clear and thorough law proposals in the next months, at least I find that Apple are in a rather fair and expected position, at least related to the EU, as long as a possible line of ideas would go like: "since we all agreed that DRM sucks and are ready to ban it, let's get rid of ALL things which are impediments in the consumer's freedom of choice."
The problems are far from being over and there will be more megabytes of text flowing away on the net regarding this issue. Stay tuned, even iTuned, until further notice.
