digital music/video
06/14/2006, 2:30pm, EDT
Wednesday, June 14th
Agencies extend Apple's iTunes deadline
Consumer-rights protection agencies in Denmark, Norway and Sweden have extended the June 21st deadline for Apple to respond to concerns over iTunes' terms of service. Earlier this month, the consumer agencies in the three countries ruled that Apple's iTunes breaches Scandinavian consumer laws, according to Reuters. "We know our Norwegian colleagues are prepared to take the issue to court and of course if they get a ruling in Norway it will be very interesting for us because our consumer laws are so similar," Marlene Winter at Denmark's National Consumer Agency told Reuters. The agencies have now given Apple until August 1st to respond to claims that its leading music service violates rights guaranteed to consumers under other laws. Apple could be forced to changes its terms of service or close down iTunes in those countries.
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Let them have Creative Zens I say! They don't deserve Apple's inovation, quality, and service!
These people just do not realize that Apple cares a lot more about selling iPods than it does about running the iTunes Music Store. State-sponsored music piracy will sell as many iPods as the iTunes Music Store. Since Apple wins either way, Apple does not care if iTMS in Denmark, Norway and Sweden goes away.
It is simple. How is buying a song from iTunes any different from ripping your own CD? Both create a digital file. As above, there are ways around the fairplay issue (more than above). WHY NOT just give a digital file with no DRM restrictions, but include an electronic watermark that can be traced. That is more than can be done with a ripped CD file and would still "make the lables feel better".
Simple fact is that the folks who buy from iTunes aren't the pirates. Try traveling to China, Korea, etc (been to Korea - gods what you can buy on the street corner) and see the REAL piracy of music.
Fairplay or no fairplay, the piracy is and will be rampant. Why not give us users full use of our music. AN EXAMPLE - 1) How about providing CD TEXT to iTunes burning application!!! I have a DVD player, 2 CD players, and a home MD deck; all of which read CD TEXT. 2) How about conversion of "protected" AAC files to mp3 (with watermark) so I can play them on a different player. As it is I lose sound quality (and often ID tag info) when going from AAC to CD to mp3. Heck, I would take the minor loss of sound quality if I could just convert (with watermark)instead of playing the "burn and rerip" game.
How about it Apple. You are doing well as a company, you have shown that iTunes can work and will grow over time, but how about giving us users our fair use?
2. Songwriters and publishers lose fair reimbursements, and by the way if it wasn't for DRM they wouldn't have played the ligitimate download game anyway and this whole discussion would be moot.
The proof is in the pudding: honest methods keep honest people honest. Allowing non-DRM downloads means that users would assume that it is their right to download without paying. Their thinking is on the wall: 'they make enough money anyway, so why should I have to pay!'
"The only reason fairplay exists is to keep people buying iPods. OR you have to accept lower quality sound by burning a audio CD, reripping and losing ID info (at least the album art - often hard to find with foreign CDs)"
Wrong on both counts. The reason Fairplay exists is because the record companies, who are all much larger and more powerful than Apple, DEMANDED it. You need to understand that the only reason Apple was allowed to have an iTunes store in the first place was because the record companies agreed to let Apple sell their albums as long as there was some sort of copy protection on the content. That's where Apple's implementation of Fairplay came in.
As for your other point, you do not have to accept lower quality sound when ripping a CD. Use Apple Lossless or the AIFF encoder instead of AAC if you don't want to lose quality.
Please direct this request to the recording companies. Fairplay was designed as a compromise between the interests of the record labels, iTMS customers, and Apple. Personally, I think Fairplay gives me "fair use."
I can't make more than 7 CD burns of the same playlist. I've never needed to make more than one (7 will never happen), so it's no issue.
I can't convert to other file formats easily. It is possible, but it's not meant to be a one-step menu command by design. I don't have a need to do this, but I can do it if I really needed to in the future. That's fair, and it's better than the past. No one complained that you could not easily change the cassette tape format to the CD format.
I can't copy the music files. Actually, that one is a myth started and perpetuated by the "no DRM" crowd. You can make as many copies of the iTMS song files as you want. Apple even encourages the practice for backup against hard drive failure. The REAL limit is to the number of Macs/PCs that can play the purchased files at a given moment. The limit is 5, and I've never hit that limit.
Sound quality is inferior to CD. True, but my music listening devices and systems (or perhaps my ears) cannot distinguish a difference.
To me, Fairplay provides "fair use." but if it's not "fair use" for you, buy the CD. The choice is yours and is not limited by Apple. Apple is simply providing a choice.
It's not "just" to withdraw the iTunes-store from scandinavia. It will have wider effect than a few less songs sold..
You have really no idea how well apple does up here do you? The prices on apple-equipment are allmost 2x yours. And allmost every 2. mp3 player is an ipod. Apple-stores? Run quite well here. Many times sold out long before stocks arrive.
Apple knows that these "small" countries have a very "thirsty" computer customer/consumer base and will think twice to pull the plug on iTunes, the only legal alternative for the iPod..