Media Wonk

Apple: Up fjords - August 9, 2006

Having avoided--for now--the worst of the potential damage to its business model from France's "iTunes Law," Apple has turned haughty toward the Norwegians.
Last month, Norway, Sweden and a few other cold kingdoms sent "inquires" to Apple as to its plans to allow songs downloaded from iTunes to play on non-iPod portable devices. The inquires came after France's National Assembly and Senate had passed a new copyright law that appeared to device makers and online content providers in France to open their systems to competitors, so those competitors could build interoperable devices or services.
Dubbed the iTunes law, the measure was clearly aimed at Apple, which has staunchly resisted licensing the iTunes DRM to other manufacturers, effectively eliminating meaningful competition to the iPod.
As the measure gained momentum in France, other European countries took up the cry of Egalite, Fraternite, Interoperabilite.
Several, including the Scandinavians, began considering similar measures of their own.
Just as things were looking bleakest for Apple, though, the French court of constitutional review stepped in and put strict limits on how courts in the future should interpret the interoperability requirement in the law.
While Apple isn't total off the hook in Gaul, the court their has raised the legal threshold for competitors to challenge its proprietary iTunes licensing.
Whether emboldened by its partial escape in France or simply anxious to try to contain any further damage, Apple has decided to take a tough stand with the Nordic countries.
Last week it sent a 50-page reply to Norway's inquiries, essentially telling authorities there to go jump in a fjord.
ITunes does not prohibit competition, Apple said, because consumers can still burn tracks purchased from the iTunes Music Store to a CD and play them on any device they like. It also stressed that the law Norwegian authorities had cited in their inquires did not apply to "electronic files" purchased "via the Internet."
Apple then proposed a meeting to "probe possibilities for a mutual agreement."
In other words, we're negotiating. The interoperability virus poses a mortal threat to Apple's "walled garden" business model and the computer maker needs to keep it from growing more virulent. But it knows it probably can't eradicate the disease altogether.
In seeking to hammer out a deal with the Vikings, Apple is hoping to keep the debate out of political arena, where anything can and often does happen, and contain things to the court room, or better yet, around a conference table in Oslo, which is really not that cold in the summer.

LEAVE A COMMENT