Apple has announced that it will be standardizing the prices of music on the European iTunes service over the next six months. This means that the UK iTunes store will be dropping its prices to match those found in other pan-European areas.

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Germany, France, Finland and Norway have decided to put together a collective stand against Apple's policies on iTunes songs being playable only on the IT giant's popular iPod mp3 players.

The four nations say that the download system used by Apple does not give way to the liberalization of the digital content market and threatened to take legal action if Apple refuses to budge until October 1.

"Do you think it's fine that a CD plays in all CD players but that an iTunes song only plays in an iPod? I don't. Something has to change," said Meglena Kuneva, EU's Consumer Protection Commissioner. He seconded the argument of the European countries that Apple's digital rights protection system prevents the copying of audio files between consumers and bars them from using their iTunes on other mp3 players.

Apple has not been available for comments on the matter. We'll keep you posted for the latest developments.

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?

The score: Dell - 3, Apple - 1.

So far, those are the only exploding laptop cases that have been catching attention. Most likely, there are more laptops going boom somewhere, but are left undocumented. Anyway, it looks like Dell is not alone in its misery, as an Apple laptop exploded -- this time in Kristiansand, Norway. The employees of a company, called Ide`til Produkt AS, got the fright of their lives as a battery of one of their  12" Powerbook G4 laptop suddenly caught fire recently.

An employee divulges that smoke appeared from the corner of the laptop, where the battery was located. He moved away from it and then flames shot out of the laptop. The said employee, Ive Skrede, was quick-minded enough to push the battery to a trash can and to take it out of the office. The trash can fire intensified. This type of laptop uses lithium-ion batteries, and they create their own oxygen when they burn. If you could recall, Apple launched a worldwide Battery Exchange Program for the iBook G4 and the PowerBook G4.

After the fiery incident, Mr. Skrede contacted Apple about what had happened. The company took it seriously as the laptop will be sent to Apple labs in Ireland, and replaced. Whether the fire is caused by the company or by the owner's negligence, definitely the Apple brand would be hard to remove from this fiasco.

Apple may be going to court again, this time against three Scandinavian countries. Apparently, iTunes' terms and conditions that make it exclusive for iPod music players is illegal in Denmark, Norway and Sweden, says Swedish Consumer Agency spokeswoman Marianne Aabyhammar.

The three Scandinavian countries are trying to break the exclusive link between iPod and iTunes and has brought the matter to their respective government mediators. Aabyhammar says, "If iTunes fails to improve its terms and conditions in Sweden, we may take the case to Sweden's market court."