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More consumer protection organizations from across Europe have initiated complaints against Apple in order to obtain a more friendly end user license agreement (EULA) for iTunes.

The consumer protectionists are concerned about the interoperability of purchased music, contractual terms and liability rules. They consider that iTunes should renegotiate its contracts with the music industry that would allow customers to play the music they buy, on the devices they choose, by downloading music from the Internet without DRM systems. They ask from the sellers to exclude from their EULAs clauses that stipulate that the agreement provisions may be altered unilaterally without the consumer’s consent and to eliminate the technical restrictions.

Following a complaint from Forbrukerradet, the Norwegian Consumer Council against Fairplay DRM system, the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon has ruled that iTunes violates Norway’s consumer law and has set a deadline for Apple to change its iTunes conditions by 1 October 2007. "If we form a united front, we will have a stronger hand in negotiations and give iTunes the support it needs to negotiate better terms with music labels," said the Ombudsman.

The Norwegian Consumer Council considers that Apple could license Fairplay to any manufacturer that wants iTunes songs to play on its equipment, co-develop an open standard with other companies or abandon DRM entirely.

Taking the example of his Norwegian colleague, the Dutch Consumer Ombudsman also filed a complaint with the Dutch anti-trust agency as well as with the new Dutch Consumer Authority (ConsumentenAutoriteit) that will enforce the European directives on consumer protection. He said that Apple did not advise the buyers that iTunes software only ran on iPods, which, in his opinion, was "misleading".

As previously reported by EDRI-gram, after its success in court with Sony, the French Consumer Association UFC Que Choisir has initiated a similar procedure against Apple for its services iPod and iTunes. The German Association of Consumer Protectionists has also raised concerns about the Apple iTunes service.

Apple has stated lately that it is aware of these issues and willing to solve them as rapidly as possible and that some negotiations have been carried out with some individual organizations.

"Apple hopes that European governments will encourage a competitive environment that lets innovation thrive, protects intellectual property and allows consumers to decide which products are successful" has been Apple spokesman Tom Neumayr’s recent statement to AP news agency.

European consumer protection organizations join forces against iTunes (23.01.2007)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/84138

Dutch consumer chief puts Apple through the mill (25.01.2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/25/dutch_out_of_tune_with_apple/

Apple ups the stakes with convergence play (29.01.2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/29/appletv/

Apple DRM illegal in Norway: Ombudsman (24.01.2007)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/24/apple_drm_illegal_in_norway/

EDRI-gram: Sony loses DRM case in France (17.01.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.1/drm_sonyfr