ITMS Faces Complaint From Norwegian Ombudsman

Whiney Mac Fanboy writes "Following the French Bill that threatened Apple's iTunes service in France, the iTunes music store is facing more uncertainty in Scandinavia. According to a report in Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten, Norway's Consumer Ombudsman has filed a complaint with Apple's music download sales service iTunes, arguing that the transaction terms violate Norwegian law. The Register is also reporting this story:, saying a contract cannot be regulated by English law, rather than Norwegian law, so iTunes must accept responsibility for damage its software may do, and said it is unreasonable to alter terms and conditions after a song has been sold. Consumer Council told the Reg: 'The Consumer Council has asked Apple to respond as to whether iTunes should work on other platforms - they have until 21 June to respond. After that the Ombudsman is likely to set another deadline and then start fining the company.' The BPI (Britain's RIAA equivalent) has also called upon Apple to license Fairplay."

Re:Foriegn Laws For US Companies?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Apple should do the same thing Yahoo, Google, MS & Cisco should do - Don't operate in a country unless you're prepared to follow their laws.

In the case of Google, MS & Cisco - they should pull the hell out of China - their laws are unreasonable, and no company with a conscience should operate there.

Norway on the other hand has perfectly reasonable laws - Apple should change their world wide operations to comply with Norwegian law :-)

"iTunes must accept responsibility...

[Anonymous Coward]

...for damage its software may do". Whoa! Does anyone in Scandanavia use Windows??? Talk about damage!!!!!

The Cold Market War

[Draracle]

Damn those socialists and their attempts to put competitive markets over monopolies/oligopolies!!! And licensing DRM? Why would we even want DRM if we have to license it? This is totally against the rules of Supply and Command.

Swedish Chef != Norwegian Ombudsman

[yardbird]

Bork bork bork?! I know they are right next to each other and all, but they are two different countries (at the moment).

Other elements of note: the ombudsman's name is Thor!*, and other headlines on the Aftenposten site include: "Women wont [sic] give up laundry" and "angry hare attacked dogsled". I thought Norway was only silly in Monty Python sketches?

* NB: It's actually Thon. Drat.

Re:Symptom of a wider problem.

[Anonymous Coward]

The rest of the world doesn't matter. Get over it. You're country is the size on one of our states. We don't care.