Even if France and Scandinavian countries are leading the charge, European Commission officials are wary of forcing Apple to open up iTunes. According to Phillip Rowe, European Commission Director General of competition, "we wouldn't at this stage regard iTunes' inability to play back on devices other than the iPod as an instance of major concern until we've seen further market developments." Seems like EU doens't wanna make an enemy out of Steve Jobs and his camp.

The director general also added that if Apple is ahead of the mp3 race, this was due to the fact that they played the game fair and square. He mentioned that "Apple obtained its strong market position in open competition with many similar players, including some with their own web sites".

This was said amidst tremendous pressure from France and Scandinavian countries to open up iTunes song downloads to play on non-Apple music players. In the UK, consumer groups have begun campaigning against certain iTunes features such as DRM (digital rights management) while record label trade body the BPI also voices its concerns.

In response to EU's take, Norwegian ombudsman Bjorn Erik Thon says he will act soon against Apple, citing consumer law, but not before he has received a letter of explanation from the company.

Consumer regulators in Europe claim that Apple places too many restrictions on consumers buying songs from the  iTunes store -- and the winds of discontent are blowing across the pond.

The Free Software Foundation carried out protests two weeks ago at Apple retail stores in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Seattle. The issue is digital rights management technology (DRM) which limits what consumers can do with purchased content. These "Defective by Design" protests are aimed not only at Apple, but also at a  growing trend toward legal restrictions that bind digital content to particular playing devices.

"This isn't intended to attack Apple and its innovations, but really to draw attention to the existence of DRM technologies, and how they restrict what consumers can do with their music," says Ted Teah of the Cambridge Massachusetts-based FSF.

Leaflets were passed out at the protests in which Apple CEO Steve Jobs is quoted as saying, "If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own," suggesting that the company is being hypocritical in its use of DRM.

Last year, Sony BMG drew criticism when the company programmed CDs with a hidden code that secretly installed itself on users' hard drives, relayed information back to Sony, and left computers vulnerable to viruses. The result was the recall of  5 million CDs, customer boycotts and class action lawsuits.

Apple's use of DRM  isn't as invasive. Teah says those restrictions may become more onerous, however, and may be used as a basis of legal attacks against consumers by various music industry organizations which have sued consumers found to have downloaded pirated songs from the Internet.

"A teenage girl making a mix tape for a boy she has a crush on could become a target for an expensive lawsuit in the future," says Teah.

Michael Gartenberg, an analyst for JupiterResearch,  says that concerns about the iTunes DRM system are unfounded. "It's fairly innocuous," he says. "You can easily get around the restrictions by burning your songs to a CD, and then reimporting them as an MP3 or any other format you wish."

Eight Apple Stores across the US were beset by marching anti-DRM protesters clad in brightly-colored Hazardous Materials (HazMat) suits. The "flash mob" was organized by Defective By Design to warn the public about Apple's DRM scheme, which prevents purchasers of music on iTunes from reselling them once they are finished with it.

To most people, DRM stands for Digital Rights Management, but Defective By Design label it "Digital Restrictions Management". With the said scheme, Apple is said to lock-in people who buy music tracks at the iTunes store.

The protests took place between 10:00AM and 12:00PM at the following Apple Stores: San Francisco, CA; Chicago, IL; Seattle, WA; Cambridge, MA; New York, NY; Huntington Station, NY; Plano, TX; and Los Angeles, CA.

Sky TV, the UK's main satellite television provider (more widespread than cable is in the UK), have announced plans to offer their subscribers video content for download in iPod-friendly format. There will be two services: One open to Sky subscibers with a monthly package costing £34 or more with clips of sports, news and entertainment programmes at no cost, and the other which will allow premium Sky subscribers with a monthly package costing £40.50 or more to download full feature films and sports highlights.

The movie offer is the interesting one here. More than 200 films will be made available at launch growing to 1,000 at a "later date". Spider-Man 2 and Dr Strangelove are expected to be highlights of the initial line-up. Sky are estimating that full-length feature films will take around one hour to download over a 2Mb broadband connection (which is rapidly becoming the standard for UK broadband users).

Once downloaded, films and clips can be stored for 30 days before they are automatically deleted. What is not clear is how exactly that DRM system will be implemented.

The delivery of sports clips is expected to be linked in to Sky's existing online betting service.

[Via VNU Net]