iTunes referred to consumer watchdog
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The Consumer Association has today complained to the UKâs Office of Fair Trading that downloading tracks from Appleâs iTunes costs UK consumers more than their counterparts in France and Germany.
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By Edward C. Baig  Want to hear music from your iTunes library on your cellphone? No, not that cellphone.
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A customer filed a $54 million lawsuit against Best Buy for losing an $1100 laptop she took in for service. The reason, exposure to identity theft.  It's about time vendors were forced to recognize the value of customers' data. I recall how the chief genius at the Apple store in Emeryville complained that they would have to eat the cost of the drive in a deal they made with the manufacturer. Someday they'll have a clue that the data on most drives is worth far more than the hardware, and that their potential liability, if the data ends up in the hands of an identity thief, is also much greater.
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A U.K. consumer watchdog office is investigating claims of unfair pricing practices.
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The Office of Fair Trading refers Apple's iTunes service to the European Commission on the grounds that it over-charges UK customers.
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(InfoWorld) - Just because three major online music retailers bind their music stores to specific portable players doesn't make it acceptable, a Norwegian consumer group leading the charge against Apple's DRM (digital rights management) policy says. "ITunes Music Store and others are unfair to consumers no matter how many download services follow the proprietary approach," wrote Torgeir Waterhouse, a senior advisor at The Norwegian Consumer Council, in response to a letter written by Apple CEO Steve Jobs andÂ posted on the Apple Web siteÂ on Tuesday. Jobs examined why DRM exists and discusses alternatives to the current set-up in his open response to calls for Apple to allow users to buy songs from the iTunes store and play them on any device. Norway's consumer representative hasÂ threatened legal action against AppleÂ for violating Norwegian law by limiting iTunes customers to playing their music only on iPods. Consumer groups in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, France, and Germany haveÂ joined Norway's complaintÂ against Apple. Jobs points out that Microsoft and Sony also sell music that can only be played on their players, supporting a model that serves customers well with choice and a continuing stream of innovative products. He also suggests that groups like Waterhouse's "redirect their energies" toward convincing the music labels to sell music without DRM, technology that aims to restrict how buyers can copy or use the music. The four biggest record labels forced Apple to employ a proprietary DRM system as a condition of the agreement that allows Apple to sell their music, he said. Ideally, he said, the labels wouldn't require DRM. "This is clearly the best alternative for consumers, and Apple would embrace it in a heartbeat," Jobs wrote. While Waterhouse agrees that the record companies carry some fault for the situation, the iTunes music store and others like it are ultimately responsible. "They're still the company that's selling music to the consumers and are responsible for offering a fair deal according to Norwegian law," he said. Still, with his letter, Jobs' appears to have stirred up some additional pressure on the record labels to change their DRM policies. EMusic.com Inc., which claims to be the second largest music download site, only sells DRM-free music from thousands of independent labels. But the site would like be able to sell music from the four biggest labels. "We are hopeful the remaining four will one day join [the independent labels] by licensing their complete catalogs and reap the benefits of consumer demand," David Pakman, president and CEO of eMusic, wrote in a response to Jobs' letter. Even though Jobs didn't hint that a solution might be impending, Waterhouse appeared to see a glimmer of hope. "If this means that Apple is willing to the kick the lock in technology from the [iTunes/iPod] combination this is really good news -- news that should be put into action as soon as possible to bring us all one important step closer to a well functioning digital society," he wrote.
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A bug in Apple Inc.'s popular iTunes music player and online store software could be used by hackers to run malicious code on a compromised PC or Mac.
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iTunes Customer Suing Apple over iPod-opoly  Apple has been sued by a customer of their iTunes Online Digital Music Store on the charge that the company broke antitrust laws by only allowing iTunes to work with Appleâs music player iPod. This leads to incompatibility of other music players with their online ...
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A piece of software used by Apple's iTunes has accidentally sparked a scandal in the classical music world -- and cast a shadow on the reputation of an obscure, deceased British pianist now accused of plagiarism.
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The Consumers&#39; Association (CA) has accused Apple of taking too big a bite out of UK music lovers&#39; money. It has asked the Office of Fair (OFT) to investigate the potential breach of competition law.
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Last week, Apple chief executive Steve Jobs called for an end to anti-piracy software on digital music as a way to let customers listen to their downloads on any device. The record labels responded with a mixture of scorn and indifference to the idea, which would disrupt their security measures.
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The OFT refers Apple's iTunes to the European Commission on the grounds that it over-charges UK customers.
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On the eve of the announcement of a new Europe-wide consumer protection program, whose stated aim is to ensure consumers' ability to return products purchased online for refunds if they're not satisfied -- regardless of what country they were purchased from -- the lead architect of that program, EU Commissioner Meglena Kuneva, hinted to the German newsweekly Focus that Apple's iTunes service could be directly impacted.
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The world&#39;s first legitimate music download service, Apple iTunes, is to be investigated by a government watchdog for overcharging its British customers by up to 20 per cent.
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Â· Consumers should come before industry, says letterÂ· Warning that watchdog is at risk of losing credibility
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A&#160;class-action suit filed against Apple&#160;alleges the company unfairly uses technological restrictions with its iPod line and iTunes Music Store to beat out competitors.The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, is the latest one to accuse Apple of unfair business practices. Apple is facing similar legal actions and scrutiny in the U.S. and Europe.The suit was filed Dec. 31 by Stacie Somers, a resident of San Diego County, California, who bought a 30GB iPod from Target, a retail store. Others who bought an iPod or content from Apple&#39;s iTunes store after Dec. 31, 2003, may join the suit.The suit calls for Apple to forfeit money it earned from the unfair practices and pay the plaintiffs damages.It alleges that Apple has constricted the market by not enabling iPods to play content in the Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, Microsoft&#39;s copy-protection technology. Further, Apple sells songs on the iTunes store with its own copy-protection technology, FairPlay, which is incompatible with music players other than the iPod.The suit contends iPod-owning consumers can only buy music from iTunes, an unlawful tie-in that violates U.S. antitrust laws. Apple could license the WMA format for as little as $0.03 per iPod, or for a total of $800,000 based on Apple&#39;s 2005 iPod sales, the suit reads.The suit may quickly become less relevant as many online music retailers, including Apple, expand their offerings of music free of copy-protection restrictions, also known as DRM (digital rights management).DRM-free tracks offer the advantage of being compatible on a wider range of devices. In May, Apple began selling songs from the label EMI without DRM. Also,&#160;Amazon.com now sells song in MP3 format, and Universal Music Group has tested selling DRM-free music.&#160;
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(InfoWorld) - Apple and four of the biggest record companies have until Wednesday to submit their written response toÂ antitrust charges that they restricted online sales of musicÂ in Europe. The deadline originally expired at the beginning of June, but was extended by two weeks at the request of Apple and three of the record companies, European Commission competition spokesman Jonathan Todd said Monday. The Commission is still waiting for replies from these four companies. The one record company that didn't request an extension has already submitted its written response, Todd said. The Commission has declined to name the record companies involved but they are assumed to be the four majors: Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Universal Music Group, Warner Music, and EMI Group. "We have every reason to believe that the remaining companies will reply by the new deadline," Todd said. Downloads from Apple's iTunes Web site are priced differently in different countries in the Union but consumers are prevented from shopping around and have to make their purchases of music from the iTunes site in the country they are based. The Commission said that in the single European market the distribution agreements between the record companies and Apple could amount to restrictive practices. Apple claims it has always tried to operate a single pan-European iTunes store accessible by anyone from any member state but has been prevented from doing so by the record labels and publishers.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!