Will Banning iTunes Completely From Norway Make Life Better For Consumers?
from the Apple's-European-lobbyists-heading-out-of-France... dept
What started a couple months ago as a minor dispute about the language of Apple's iTunes' terms of service in Norway may turn into a much bigger issue. The consumer agency there is saying that they're not happy with Apple's responses and may try to ban iTunes from the country. This certainly seems like a bit of an overreaction -- as it's hard to see how consumers are better off with no iTunes at all. The main issue at hand is that the consumer agency feels that Apple is unfairly limiting choice by contractually forcing users to only use their music on iPod devices (similar to the complaint in France). Originally, it sounded like the complaint was over the fact that many users might not realize this when agreeing to the clickwrap terms of service. However, now officials seem to be focusing in on the general dislike of the limitation -- not how it's presented. That seems pretty pointless. If consumers don't like the limitations, then let them make the decision. It's fine to make sure that Apple is upfront about the limitations, but it's their business right to put those limitations in (whether or not they make long term economic sense).
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They're a bunch of Nor-weenies
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Not in America Any More
In other words, they do not have an open/free economy like the US does. In reality ours is limited, though mostly open and free.
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Protectionist government
My choice was simple: I simply don't buy DRM'd products anymore. I understand that it's a lock-in tool for the iPod and a shoot-now-ask-questions-later stance the R I double A.
Why are people expecting government officials on regulating committees or agencies --who probably know less about the issues at hand than the rest of us-- to try and crack down on this type of behavior?
I'm tired of backstabbing, paid off, partisan, over-reaching, grandstanding, moralistic, holier-than-thou, I-know-what's-good-fer-yah, power-grabbing politicians. From whatever demon they've spawned from, rock they'd hatched under.
Regulation does little good in the short-term but does damage in the future. Just look at the telcos and their government (municipal, county, state or federal) endorsed and propped up monopolies. Mostly thanks to corrupt politicians and poorly thought out regulation...or rather any regulation at all.
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Er
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Re: Er
Or maybe they make it more restrictive.
Or maybe theyre in a gray area... maybe you can only use the music through itunes, and they change itunes and make it suck so you hate it. Maybe new itunes doesnt work well on your computer and some functions fail.
Whatever the case, theyre changing what you can do with your music.
That makes the music intrinsically worthless, according to my point of view, but then according to another reasonable man, its a boon.
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Re: Not in America Any More
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Re: Protectionist government
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Re:
I believe you're going to see the same thing in America when the current generation begins to grow up. You're going to see a huge backlash against these kinds of content controls in the next 20 years. Ironically I think its going end up working in the consumer's favor. They just don't know it yet..
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Re: Re: Protectionist government
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Re: Not in America Any More
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Apple can eat a dick
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Re: Not in America Any More
The iPod user agreement probably violates some consumer protection law in Norway, you know the ones that they don't have in the US, so the RIAA can pull the citizens out of bed in the middle of the night and lay a beating on them.
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um
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Re: Re: Not in America Any More
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Re: Re: Not in America Any More
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For the people, by the people
I don't suppose you can point to where in the U.S. Constitution it says "for the people, by the people"? How about the Declaration of Independence?
Nice phrase. The Republican President Lincoln used it at Gettysburg.
See http://www.archives.gov/national-archives-experience/charters/constitution_transcript.html or http://www.law.indiana.edu/uslawdocs/declaration.html
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Rich to richer? nah, just incumbants...
"Politicians, just like diapers, should be changed regularly, and for the same reasons."
secondly, another quote from another person who i forget goes:
"Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other's they've tried."
thridly, another quote:
"Democracy ensures that the people get the exact form of government they deserve."
and this is one i coined:
"My left nut thinks twice in a day as the average politician in his/her entire term."
i'd love to go on, but its getting late for me...
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woops, typo
just so you know...
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Scary but true
Then you simply don't buy products anymore.
Regardless of whether or not you agree with Norway, there is some merit in their actions. Norway is simply enforcing it's equivalent of anti-trust laws. The fact is that large companies will attempt to establish trusts and that the only way to maintain a free market is to constantly bash trusts. Otherwise the trusts get entrenched and the consumers do not have any choice.
For example, take land line telephone access. You simply do not have a choice of which telephone company you use. For the vast majority of people, the same is true of cable access. Sometimes, technologies like satellite TV or mobile phones partially break the monopoly, but other times they do not.
Try buying any video camera, digital picture camera, or multimedia mobile phone. They all have DRM built in them even if you are not aware of it.
And if you think that is scary, almost every color laser printer puts small, but visible yellow dots on every printed page that can be used to track which printer the page came from and who owns it. No, I'm not making that up. See the Electronic Frontier Foundation's site at http://www.eff.org/Privacy/printers/list.php
George Orwell was an optimist.
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Re: They're a bunch of Nor-weenies
free university
oil revenues
great software companies
no troops in iraq
yeah, I'd give up itunes in a second to move there.
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Itunes
And the recording industry is still pissed that Apple only wants to charge .99 cents a song and like 9.99 an album. Because their artists are suffering they can only afford the small Hummer. (If you have ever watched MTV cribs I don't know how anyone would ever feel sorry for the Recording industry)
So basically what Apple has done is gone and found some middle ground that everyone is happy with you can get cheap music and they offer the Ipod in cheap versions as well as expensive versions so it's not like they are saying you can only use our players with Itunes and we are going to charge you a million dollars. They charge a fair price for both the player and the song. I can only imagine how much we would be paying if iTunes was created by Microsoft and not Apple. Last time I checked Napster; Yahoo; and Real only have certain players that are compatible with their pay per song programs all the other players you have to pay a subscription every month and when you stop paying the subscription the music doesn't work anymore. If we have learned anything from the deregulation of Energy and what Enron did to California once Apple has to let other players work with ITunes the don't sell as many Ipods good by .99 a song hello crappy CD for 18.99!!!!! If it's not broke don't fix it. I can't put Ford parts on a GM car (not very easily anyway). People are starving all over the world, people are getting blowing up in the middle east, the minimum wage in the us is still 5.15, and education and health care suck and this is what governments spend their time worrying about?????
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Re: Scary but true
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Re: Apple can eat a dick
Basically the Recording Companies screwed themselves over years ago when they went from selling tapes at $8.99 to CD's which cost less to make for 18.99 and we all wanted CD's so we paid their high prices and then Napster came about and no body was paying for CD's. Eventually the government stepped in and said we will have none of this and it was back to 18.99 unless you wanted your 8 year old getting subpoena for illegal downloads. Then Apple figured out that people would pay to download songs if it was cheap enough and it wasn't much of a hassle. Apple is successful for one reason iTunes with an iPod is easy to use at a price people can afford so nobody is complaining except the people that bought another player from a company that doesn't have a download service.
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Calling it Protectionism misses the point
The issue is not with a "consumer protection" law, it is with their national system of copyrights. The Copyright Act in Norway is the system of monopoly distribution that gives the big music companies control of how their work is distributed inside the country. That's what copyright is as a commercial fact.
Given that I think you have to realize that the issue is not one of the government seeking to prevent the offering of a commercial service, rather in this situation the government simply wishes to ensure that material covered by a copyright distribution monopoly are not discriminated in a manner they deem unacceptably discriminatory or restrictive of what they consider fair noncommercial copying. That is the deal in Copyright.
So the real question is not, as the headline asks, whether consumers are better off without one specific commercial service, but rather whether the consumers are better off when monopoly distribution rights are not used in a discriminatory or unfair manner. If you think the latter might be true then the question becomes whether the proposed distribution scheme is in fact discriminatory or unfair.
Since the iTunes music store restricts your ability to access what you purchase except via a box the same store retains control over, the iTunes software and the iPod, and that the store retains the right to change the terms of the purchase after it's made, they may have a good argument that this model for distribution goes beyond what is allowed under copyright law.
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Re: Rich to richer? nah, just incumbants...
That may be true, but there are no democracies in the world today. There hasn't been a democracy since the city-state of Rome became a Republic that later became a despotic empire.
A democracy is not a form of government in which you vote for people to rule over you. It's a form of government where you vote for the rules themselves. In a democracy their would be no congress or president. We, the people, would vote for tax rates, whether or not to go to war, and all other issues in a popular election.
America is a republic, and not a very good one either. In a good republic elections are instant-runoff, the people can impeach and recall elected leaders themselves, all political offices are elected (not appointed), and there is no legal corporate sponsership of politicians.
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Re: Re: Scary but true
The point of my original post is that in almost every situation today, you DON'T have a choice.
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Re: Re: Apple can eat a dick
Actually IBM figured this out first with project Madison. Unfortunately, IBM couldn't market free candy to children, so no one's heard of Madison.
It was a really cool system started back in 1998. Madison was a complete electronic music distribution system from the recording studio to the electronic store, to the customer device. It supported every codec (AAC, MP3, etc.) and was an open standard that any portable music player could use. You could have used IPods, RIO's, or granny's MP3 pocketbuster. You could also purchase music from different music stores.
Think Apple Itunes without the lock-in to Apple. That was IBM's Madison Project.
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Re: Re: Re: Protectionist government
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Re: Not in America Any More
Any major decisions are put to a general vote, unlike in the US where all it takes $$$ to lobby a few senators to push through whatever crap you want without needing the consensus of the people.
My country pays for medical, dental and higher learning. I can also count on a comfortable retirement. All paid for through my Taxes because I voted for it.
Not in America! Yeah, thats for sure.
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