Whoops, not all European governments take too kindly to DRM. The Fairplay DRM system for Apple's iPod and iTunes service, has raised some tempers in Norwegian consumers and, apparently, even its own legality (how ironic...). The Norwegian Consumers Council called Forbrukerradet (now don't hurt yourself pronunciating it) filed a complaint with the Office of the Ombudsman on behalf of the Norwegian consumers.

The complaint said that Fairplay prevented songs bought from iTunes from playing on any other device other than the iPod. This is illegal in Norway. Guess what? The Ombudsman agreed.

Torgeir Waterhouse, a senior adviser at the Consumer Council, said, "It doesn't get any clearer than this. Fairplay is an illegal lock-in technology whose main purpose is to lock the consumers to the total package provided by Apple by blocking interoperability." It would seem that iTunes Music is trying to "kill off" interoperability in order to boost its own profits.

Waterhouse said that the Ombudsman has already written to Apple saying that Fairplay is illegal. He also said, "iTunes Music Store must remove the illegal lock-in technology or appear in court. As of right now we're heading for a big breakthrough that will hopefully pave the way for consumers everywhere to regain control of music they legally purchase."

iTunes must now choose to license the DRM to manufacturers of players so they can play iTunes songs; it can co-develop an open-standard with other companies (make interoperability easier); or it can drop the whole DRM system.

The Ombudsman supports the NCC's claim that the DRM is not just simply a copy protection scheme. The heavy restrictions in the DRM broke the contract law in Norway. How did Apple react?

Tom Neumayr, spokesman for Apple told the AP news agency earlier this week:

Apple is aware of the concerns we've heard from several agencies in Europe and we're looking forward to resolving these issues as quickly as possible. Apple hopes that European governments will encourage a competitive environment that lets innovation thrive, protects intellectual property, and allows consumers to decide which products are successful.

Hmmm... Didn't know something to solve illegal issues could be illegal? What's your take?