European Consumer Organisations Join Forces Against DRM and Target iTunes

Four European consumer organizations joined forces to force t ofight agaisnt DRM-protected music tracks and target Apple and its iTunes Store. Hereafter is part of their claims:

Berlin/Paris/Oslo//Helsinki
Consumer organizations from across Europe have agreed on joint positions in a legal battle with Apple to achieve consumer friendly conditions for iTunes users throughout Europe. "We will join forces to safeguard consumer interests when purchasing digital content online”, the Consumer Ombudsmen in Finland and Norway, the French Consumer Organization UFC Que Choisir and the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (vzbv) declared. The four organizations agreed on a list of demands which are included in letters which all organizations wrote to iTunes today.
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The four consumer organizations have previously initiated legal proceedings against iTunes in 2006. iTunes has been open for discussions but negotiated separately with the different national consumer organizations. The four organizations now speak with one voice and will work towards improved consumer rights and conditions for consumers throughout Europe. iTunes had also been in favor of bundling negotiations
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Interoperability
"We believe consumers have a right to play material purchased online on a portable device of their own choice,” the four organizations said. .. An interim solution could be to definitely clarify that consumers are allowed to re-rip burnt CDs to make iTunes songs playable on other devices. However this with iTunes discussed proposal will not serve as a long-term solution. "We thus urge Apple to make substantial progress towards full interoperability until the end of September 2007.”
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Change of conditions
On the issue of legal terms and conditions, consumer organizations insist that iTunes revoke their clause according to which iTunes may unilaterally change their terms and conditions without seeking their customers' consent.
Liability
The joint position also refers to potential damage claims linked to content sold by iTunes: "iTunes should change its clause limiting its liability to recover consumer damages if they are caused by content sold by iTunes.”
Applicable Law
The four organizations also criticize contract clauses on the law applicable in case of legal disputes: "Consumers entering into a contract with iTunes should be able to rely on the consumer protection rules according to the law of the country in which they live."

We do believe that interoperability is the way to go for the success of online music store. So, as we mention it previously, Apple should open its DRM system to third parties. We also understand that Consumer associations target Apple as the company is owning more than 70% of the worldwide online music market; however we think it would have been fair to mention other stores such as MSN, Virgin, Microsoft, etc... (as it was done on the Finish and Norwegian consumer association). However, it also proves that once European consumer associations will have found an agreement with Apple, other online stores will have to follow or die. Indeed, targeting Apple also illustrates how negligible the other players are in this business.
We also hope that Microsoft is not manipulating such associations by arguing that it is all Apple's responsibility; targeting Cupertino is fine so far it serves real consumer interest and it is not biased by some other considerations, or driven by the success of Cupertino in this business.
Last but not least, consumer associations should NOT forget that all online music stores offer DRM-protected music tracks because Music Majors have asked for... We doubt that Apple would have installed on its own.
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