Apple’s DRM is not about copy protection. It’s an effective way to lock you in to their business model and make as much money as possible without any regard for consumers’ rights.
The Norwegian Consumer Council, Forbrukerradet, lodged a complaint with the Ombudsman on behalf of Norwegian consumers claiming that the Fairplay DRM system acted against the interests of consumers. It said that the fact that the technology stopped songs bought from iTunes being played on any player other than an iPod broke the law in Norway.
The Ombudsman has now agreed, according to Torgeir Waterhouse, senior advisor at the Consumer Council.
“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,” Waterhouse told OUT-LAW.COM. “For all practical purposes this means that iTunes Music Store is trying to kill off one the most important building blocks in a well functioning digital society, interoperability, in order to boost its own profits.”
And it’s not just Apple. RIAA/MPAA & co are doing the exact same using DRM – selling it to us as copy protection in order to fight piracy. But all they want to do is to sell us the same stuff over and over to milk it for all they can and line their ever growing pockets. The sooner more countries wake up to the realities of what DRM and proprietary formats are actually being used for, the better. New and fair legislation is needed to protect the consumers.
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