Apple Answers EU, This Time Without Open Letter

06.21.07 - 02:49pm

Remember that long ongoing feud between the European Commissions and Apple concerning the interoperability of Apple’s iTunes - not able to play on other devices. Well that got demolished when Apple went DRM free, silencing the original European complaints that went like this.

“What we want from Apple is that they remove the limitations that prevent you from playing a song you download from iTunes on any player other than an iPod,” said Van Kouwen, a spokesman for the Dutch Consumertenbond. “When you buy a music CD it doesn’t play only on players made by Panasonic. People who download a song from iTunes shouldn’t be bound to an iPod for the rest of their lives.”

Meglana Kuneva, the European Union’s Consumer Chief spoke outright against iTunes and the iPod in an interview saying “”Do you think it’s fine that a CD plays in all CD players but that an iTunes song only plays in an iPod? I don’t. Something has to change.”

Well interoperability wasn’t the only problem Europe had with iTunes. They were also concerned about the way iTunes is currently set up in the European market. At the moment a user in one country cannot download music from a website designed to serve another country. The customers are then affected by the pricing differences between the eurozone and elsewhere.

Apple was supposed to respond to the commission earlier in the month. The deadline was extended till yesterday and Apple did make the midnight deadline, albeit while holding back till seemingly the last moment.

A commission spokesperson said, “They answered yesterday and we are studying (the response) carefully at this point.”

No word on what Apple’s response was - we’ll let you know as soon as we hear it. We do however know what they said when the formal charges were first filed back in April. At that point an Apple spokesperson said, “Apple has always wanted to operate a single, pan-European iTunes store, accessible by anyone from any member state. But we were advised by the music labels and publishers that there were certain legal limits to the rights they could grant us. We do not believe the company did anything to violate EU law, and we will continue to work with the EU to resolve this matter.”

There are also unnamed major record companies that have been asked to respond to the allegations. The commission said one responded before the first June 4th deadline while two others have been granted extensions till June 29th.

We’ll see how it plays out but all in all the EU has been a lot less upset with Apple since they went DRM free, so kudoos to Apple and Steve Jobs bold move.

Category: apple, itunes | Tags: apple, european_commissions, eurozone, formal_charges, interoperability, itunes