marketwatch.com — A European antitrust probe into the pricing of Apple Inc.'s iTunes music downloads service could force the music industry to unravel the complex web of intellectual property agreements which allow music to be sold across the world, experts say.
Apr 4, 2007 View in Crawl 4
morriscatApr 6, 2007
iProbe, 10,000 songs up your...
kronix2Apr 6, 2007
Ok, I can see some people are talking about the evil EU and innocent Apple, so I'll spell it out in simple terms:APPLE VIOLATED EU LAWApple is preventing the free movement of goods between EU member states, as is stipulated by EU law. They do this by locking you in to the iTunes store of the country your credit card is registered in. This means a British consumer is unable to buy tracks from the Germans iTunes store. This is in clear violation of EU law, and it's why the European Commission launched a probe.APPLE CAN CHARGE HOWEVER MUCH IT WANTS IN ANY COUNTRYApple is free to charge different prices in different EU member states. What they're not permitted to do is preventing EU consumers from purchasing tracks from the iTunes stores of other EU member states. Under EU law, EU consumers MUST be able to shop in foreign stores and buy goods at the foreign prices.THE EU IS NOT PICKING ON APPLETHe European Commission has levied colossal fines on Microsoft, Siemens and other companies. Apple is just the latest company which is suspected of breaking EU law and mistreating customers.APPLE AREN'T A BUNCH OF ANGELSApple obviously knew about the EU's freedom of movement laws. They chose to knowingly violate them when they signed deals with record labels which prevented consumers in one EU state from purchasing tracks from the iTunes store of other EU member states."APPLE SHUD LEAV TEH EU!!!!! LOL EUROP SUX BALZ"Let's overlook the fact that withdrawing from a market of 500 million people would be incredibly stupid and assume that Apple does indeed cease trading in the EU. The record labels will simply sell their European music licenses to other music stores, and business will continue as usual. If Apple wants to trade in the EU, they have to follow our laws. They haven't, and in all probability they'll be hit with colossal fines. It's as simple as that. Believe it or not, preventing corporations from abusing consumers is part of the European Commission's job.
meatmcguffinApr 6, 2007
That doesn't explain the countless times the music industry has pressured Jobs to increase prices and he flat out refused.
loonacyApr 6, 2007
"Apple is doing nothing more. You're in France? You get French prices. You're in Germany, you get Germany pricing."That's not at all how it works."iTunes checks credit card details before accepting payment. For instance, only people with a credit card issued by a bank with an address in Germany can buy from the German site."You're in France? You get German prices, because your bank is a German bank. You're in Germany? You get UK prices, because your bank is a UK bank.
kingsterApr 6, 2007
@Loonacy: I thought it was based on your billing address, not your bank address.
Closed AccountApr 6, 2007
I can't stand another "probe" the month.The IRS just "rected" me.
loonacyApr 6, 2007
@kingsterPerhaps, I'm not sure. My quote about banks was from the BBC article that coolspray linked. Either way, if I lived in Germany and traveled to France, my bank address and billing address would both be Germany, so I would get German prices despite being in France at the time of the purchase.
radio1mikeApr 6, 2007
Lysdexia has it right.I have always thought that this digital music pricing was wrong. It should be based on data and data quality (like allofmp3.com). After all, is that not why we are getting bounced out of 'fair use'? Because we can produce data exactly, even if we do 'own' it? Silly silly silly.I would be inclined to buy all my music online if they were pricing like allofmp3.com does. But they don't. And $1.00 per track is too much money for a stream of zeroes and ones. The GD media I am downloading it too is mine. I don't own those bits on my own hard drive??? The music companies devalued their own products by:1) Not dropping CD prices to way below the $10.00 price mark for a major acts. Remember those evening news reports in the late '80, when the record labels and the RIAA said, 'CD prices will drop to the $6-$7 when everybody adopts the standard.' crap.2) Overvalue = Devalue. Digital technology without the freedom of how, when and where to use it has devalued the record companies products. 45s when I was a teen used to be $1.50 a pop. I did not mind paying that, still would not-- because it something tangible. Strings of data really aren't....
betonaApr 6, 2007
Indeed. When CDs first came out, the manufacturing cost was way up there -- as in 8 or 9 bucks per disc if memory serves me. Now the cost is in the pennies, with the record companies raking it in on a per-unit basis.My beef has always been with the single price model. The absolute latest, hottest release has the exact same price as a 50-year-old b-side single and that's just wrong. There's no way a Sam Cooke song from 1960 should cost the exact same as whatever, say, Fergie just released last week. And yet, it does in the digital music world.