Norway group attacks iTunes
p2p news / p2pnet: The Consumer Council of Norway (CCN) wants the country’s Consumer Ombudsman to investigate alleged Apple iTunes violations of Norway’s Marketing Control Act.
"When you purchase music from iTunes they give themselves the right to single-handedly change your rights at any given later date," says the council’s Torgeir Waterhouse, quoted on Forbrukkerådet.
CCN says considers iTunes terms to be part of an "ongoing development" which undermines user rights.
"The Apple owned iTunes Music Store dominates the market of music downloads, the only portable mp3 players capable of playing music from iTunes are Apples own iPod series," says Waterhouse.
But Apple is alone in attracting the CCN’s attention.
Many other download services such as CDON.com, prefueled.com and MSN.no also have similar terms of use tand he council wants them reviewed as well for potential breaches of the Marketing Control Act.>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The Consumer Council of Norway files a complaint regarding iTunes’ terms of service
Posted by Jo Singstad – Forbrukkerådet
In order to purchase music from iTunes the consumer has to agree to a set of terms. After a review of these terms the Consumer Council of Norway found several of to be highly questionable.
- The terms of use are unreasonable so we are asking the Consumer Ombudsman to use § 9a of The Marketing Control Act to force a change of the terms, says senior advisor Torgeir Waterhouse.
- iTunes can change the your rights to the music after you downloaded it. This is a violation of basic Principles of consumer contract law. Consumers who want to play they’re music on a non-iPod player must first remove the copy protection, this removal for legitimate private use is however stopped by iTunes DRM technology and Terms of Use. iTunes stopping this removal for legitimate private use like playing the music on a non-iPod mp3 player is obviously in violation of the Copyright Act, says Waterhouse.
The Consumer Council of Norway finds the terms to be unbalanced and highly in favour of iTunes as one party in the entered agreement.
- The consumer is granted few or no rights while iTunes provides itself with several unfair rights according to Waterhouse.
English law
iTunes Europe operates from Luxemborg and terms of use stipulate that they are governed by English law. The Consumer Council of Norway does not agree to this choice of legislation.
- iTunes.no is only available to Norwegian consumers. They’re using a Norwegian domain, the site is only available in Norwegian and the prices are listed in Norwegian currency.
- All these point lead us to conclude that Norwegian consumer legislation is the correct choice and that iTunes.no [should] fall under the regulation of Norways Marketing Control Act, says Waterhouse.
The Consumer Council of Norway has thus asked the Consumer Ombudsman to review and censor iTunes standard contract terms.
Limits liability
The iTunes terms of use limit the consumers rights to damages the terms of use state :
Apple does not represent or guarantee that the service will be free from loss, corruption, attack, viruses, interference, hacking, or other security intrusion, and Apple disclaims any liability relating thereto. You shall be responsible for backing up your own system.
- Consumers are cut off from claiming damages if iTunes should create a breach of security that that could be exploited by hacker or malware. Waterhouse points out that this is a highly relevant issue, like we’ve just seen in the Sony BMG case.
Limiting the consumer’s rights to claiming damages is is a violation of basic principles of consumer contract law. The Consumer Council of Norway regards this term as unreasonable.
iTunes is not the only one
Since many other download services like CDON.com, prefueled.com and MSN.no operate with similar terms of use the Consumer Council of Norway has requested that these services are also put under review for potential breach of the Marketing Control Act.
Digital rights are under pressure
The Consumer Council of Norway is following the development in the download business closely.
It’s important that the terms of service cater to the needs of the consumers as well as the content providers, says Waterhouse.
It’s equally important for us to work for increasing use of open standards in consumer electronics and content services.
- Consumers should be free to choose the equipment and software he or she prefers. The access to content should not be blocked my a random choice of technology. If your next mp3-player is not an iPod you’ll not be able to listen to the music you’ve bought from iTunes, says Waterhouse.
(Thanks, Reidun)
