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Norway's Consumer Ombudsman Files iTunes Complaint

Wednesday, June 7th, 2006 at 2:50 PM - by

Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon has filed a complaint with Apple over its iTunes Music Store, claiming that its transaction terms violate the country's laws. He said that Norway's Market Council, as well as similar groups in Sweden and Denmark, agree with him, according to a Norwegian news site.

"The move is the latest step in Scandinavian skepticism towards the successful service's protection system of songs sold for use on Apple's massively popular iPod player," the Web site reported. At the heart of the matter is the fact that users must violate the terms of their agreement with the iTMS if they want to use DRM-protected music on a device other than an iPod.

Mr. Thon said that "his phone has already begun to ring regularly with long-distance calls from Apple's 'well-paid lawyers.'"

Thanks to Macworld UK for the link.

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Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Jun 07, 2006 3:02 pm

And I have to drain the ink from my Epson Printer Cartridge and inject it into an HP cartridge if I want to use it, which violates BOTH companie's EULAs.

This is such bogus crap anymore. Apple ISN"T stopping customers from purchasing music anywhere else, they DON"T require the consumer to buy the iPod. It is a product offering and it uses a format they prescribe. The morons who keep spearheading this movement should be disemboweled for their stupidity. Get over it. Move on. There are bigger issues to solve in this world. Such as who the heck cares what the Norwegians think anyway? (and I'm Norwegian American!)

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Jun 07, 2006 3:20 pm

I hope the Norwegian Ombudsman will also help users of Windows DRM-based download services who must violate the terms of their agreement if they want to use that DRM-protected music on an iPod.

Surely that is the more urgent priority!

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Jun 07, 2006 3:42 pm

I, and any clear thinking individual, am with the norwegian guy on this. ANY DRM IS BAD - can you not see this? Look into a future when you don't actually own any of these things, they'll just be devices for milking you.

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A guest said: (hide)

Wed Jun 07, 2006 3:59 pm

Let them use Urge. As soon as you move the music from it's original folder you can no longer play it. Also DRM is not an Apple thing it's and RIAA thing. The only way we get online music is to either pirate it, or accept some DMR. Apple's DRM is a lot better then the other companies. The RIAA wants you to pay for every copy of a song you have on your computer. So, if you copy your music library to a CD or or hard drive for a back up you would have to pay again for those songs. So, yea DRM is bad, but it can be worse. Just please don't take away a reasonable system.

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Bosco said:

member since 03 Jun 2002 with 1002 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Jun 07, 2006 4:24 pm

Apple lawyers have already begun an investigation into Mr. Bjшrn Thon. In addition to not knowing how to burn an MP3 CD in iTunes and copy those songs onto the other device he claims to have (and we all know he must be a total loser for having such an "other" device), they have also found that Mr. Bjшrn Thon is not the gentelman's real name! Born "Bjшrn Erik Thorn", little Bjшrn Erik was tormented by his Norwegian classmates with taunts of "Bjшrn Thorn watches porn!". "Oofdah!", exclaimed young Bjшrn Erik, "I am changing my name, but keeping the option open that one day, I could change it again and be a porn star." Apple lawyers already have Mr. Thon under surveillance, and in anticipation of him changing his name once again, have their agents looking into any new Mr. Bjшrn Erik Thong that shows up in Norway. Mr. Thong, for his part, is considering joing the Norwegian Witness Protection Program in Minnesota.

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LaurieF said:

member since 15 Jun 2001 with 3547 posts, TMO Forum Mod, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Jun 07, 2006 5:21 pm

Tiger wrote:
There are bigger issues to solve in this world. Such as who the heck cares what the Norwegians think anyway? (and I'm Norwegian American!)

Lots of Norwegians in Norway, I would imagine...

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Tiger said:

member since 17 Jun 2003 with 1018 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Jun 07, 2006 6:17 pm

Norway's official population is equal to that of PreKatrina Louisiana, or 1/60th of the United States. Unless each and every one of their citizens has an iPod and is buying music, it comes down to inconsequential numbers to Apple. The DRM is there for legality.

Oh, and I know this isn't your point, but I saw a bunch of posts from people in different places complaining about Apple changing terms of service and how that is illegal.

Would somebody PLEASE tell credit card companies this? It's an every day thing.

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LaurieF said:

member since 15 Jun 2001 with 3547 posts, TMO Forum Mod, send him a message or view his profile

Wed Jun 07, 2006 7:27 pm

Apple is an US-based but international company, and must comply with the laws, however different and arguably idiotic, in whichever country it trades. It doesn't matter how many people there are in each country (although I'm sure it would piss all over Tuvalu) and whether it exists locally or uses an agent - governments can have a fit of pique and ban companies from trading if they don't want to comply.

Which is why Mr Thong (nice one, Bosco!) has been having all these cosy chats with Apple's lawyers.

The problem here, as has been pointed out, is not truly with Apple but with the RIA[insert country of significance] who insist on DRM and won't back down on their demands. The hypocritical RIANZ has enough power to make it difficult to allow Apple to set up iTMS in New Zealand (which has a (slighly) smaller population again than Norway, which does have iTMS!). I look forward to not being backward.

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Actual Reality said:

member since 16 Aug 2005 with 44 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Jun 08, 2006 9:38 am

Tiger wrote:
And I have to drain the ink from my Epson Printer Cartridge and inject it into an HP cartridge if I want to use it, which violates BOTH companie's EULAs.

This is such bogus crap anymore. Apple ISN"T stopping customers from purchasing music anywhere else, they DON"T require the consumer to buy the iPod. It is a product offering and it uses a format they prescribe. The morons who keep spearheading this movement should be disemboweled for their stupidity. Get over it. Move on. There are bigger issues to solve in this world. Such as who the heck cares what the Norwegians think anyway? (and I'm Norwegian American!)

amen brother!

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Actual Reality said:

member since 16 Aug 2005 with 44 posts, unranked, send him a message or view his profile

Thu Jun 08, 2006 9:58 am

Guest wrote:
Let them use Urge. As soon as you move the music from it's original folder you can no longer play it. Also DRM is not an Apple thing it's and RIAA thing. The only way we get online music is to either pirate it, or accept some DMR. Apple's DRM is a lot better then the other companies. The RIAA wants you to pay for every copy of a song you have on your computer. So, if you copy your music library to a CD or or hard drive for a back up you would have to pay again for those songs. So, yea DRM is bad, but it can be worse. Just please don't take away a reasonable system.

actually, it's much worse, they want you to pay for every time you PLAY the song... or hear it on the radio... the kicker is, they don't plan on offering you any way to choose what you hear on the radio, just making you pay to listen to the music they deem important will suffice.

it kinda reminds me of the whole y2k thing, people heard that a couple of older computers "might" not be able to comprehend the concept of a year 2000, go berzerk and kill everyone (the press, of course, added that last part...)

people were hoarding everything they could get their hands on as a response... man, those must have been a good couple of months for safeway's stock holders... (i never cared, even older macs could go to the year 25000 before they even THINK about killing people)

man, i'll bet those guys who bought the $10,000 personal bomb shelters felt pretty saucy on jan. 2nd... uh huh, i'm SURE you bought it for a purpose completely unrelated to y2k...

the record companies feel they may be losing a cash cow, so they're flailing uncontrollably, grabbing at everything that resembles money... unfortunately, they can't see the forest through the trees. digital music IS a cash cow, but the thought that they can allow people to keep music indefinately on an ala carte basis kills them, the tech to control it IS there and they hate the fact that their powerless to enforce it.

it boils down to this, they now need to create more music for people to consume. it needs to be better, the days of buying an album for a single is over. instead of hiring the good writers for a song or two and using them to sell the albums while they let the intern write the rest of the crap for nothing, they have to constantly release good song, after good song... hiring writers on this kind of basis is going to get pretty pricey, and hiring good indy talent to do it would mean too many hands in the cookie jar... they can't have that. so they're left in a conundrum... personally i hope the governments will realize that the ipod is not the problem, the record industry (who happen to line the pockets of these government officals) is... the ipod is the solution to their problem, but the industry can't seem to understand that it's apple's functionality that people like, couple that with a DRM just lenient enough so most people won't even know it exists and you got a winner.

i tried the new "ipod killer" from iriver at best buy... couldn't do much with it. it was locked up... WTF? i played with an ipod instead. as i'm sure every person who came into that store did as well.

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