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EC downplays iPod competition worries

27 March 2007 10:32 by Andre "DVDBack23" Yoskowitz | 2 comments

On Tuesday, a top European Commission official raised questions as to whether competition authorities need to beign regulating Apple's iPod music players.

Many critics have argued that Apple should make the music it sells at its iTunes store compatible with all mp3 players, not just the iPod.

"Before we jump in to regulate competition on the market it is worth asking whether competition is actually harmed," the Commission's director general for competition, Philip Lowe, said at an antitrust conference in Munich, Germany.

"Is there not vigorous competition between different bundles of mp3 players and music libraries?,"said Lowe, who is the second-highest ranking competition official in the EU.

Consumer rights organizations that originate from Germany, France, Finland and Norway have all agreed to jointly campaign against iTunes.

Norway, who is not a member of the EU, made comments in January that said Apple must liberalize its music download system by October 1 of 2007 or face legal action.

Source:
Reuters

Permalink to this article

Apple is first to face European Commision after Microsoft defeat (19 September 2007)

SanDisk and Yahoo unite for MP3 goodness (9 April 2007)

First iPod virus found (6 April 2007)

iTunes gets Baseball content (31 March 2007)

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Discuss this article!
tefarko (Junior Member) 27 March 2007 12:28
die DRM, die... [ + quote]
pigfister (Inactive) 27 March 2007 23:27
Originally posted by tefarko: die DRM, die... actually itunes is a good thing, as you can easily remove the DRM by burning it to disc then just ripping in back to your pc, and it is a thorn in the side to businesses as having incompatibility keeps it in the public eye as ipod dominates the market. Steve Jobs has already stated that DRM fails and has requested that the music labels let him sell music with no DRM, but was disallowed lets you know who the real aHoles are. this level of incompatibility is nothing compared to what we will see in the hd world but if we have to purchase all our equipment again the companies win twice i suppose! [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 27 March 2007 23:31