But European countries who have nothing better to do are trying to force Apple to songs purchased on iTunes work on any mp3 player, while also suggesting Apple might also try to sell songs without DRM.

Unfortunately, while I’m no fan of DRM, Apple should not be forced to make iTunes work with other mp3 players. Of course, I’d love to see Apple sell songs without DRM, but aside from undoubted music company requirements that DRM must be used, Apple is well within their rights to limit iTunes as they wish, and if that means all the iPod clones can’t play iTunes purchased songs, so be it.

After all, if the European countries involved wanted to do something about it, there’s nothing stopping them, with all their programming resources, from coming up with a DRM-free music store of their own that allows purchased songs to play on any mp3 player, including the iPod.

Indeed, some music companies have started seeing the light, and are realizing that selling mp3’s without DRM could actually be a good idea, with initial experiments on Yahoo Music and elsewhere proving very successful in sales terms.

Even Bill Gates has suggested recently something along the lines that buying a CD of music and ripping it is a much more efficient way to get your music in a format that plays nicely with all devices out there.

European consumer organizations advise that iTunes songs can be burnt to CD and re-imported elsewhere, but they also acknowledge this is not a long-term solution. They also want Apple to respond by the end of September 2007.

Well… if they can ever get Gillette razors to work in Shick blades, or any of the world’s other proprietary standards to just ‘open up’, or even to get Microsoft to write a version of Microsoft Office for Linux, they might have some success in getting Apple to change their tune on iTunes.

The only problem is that on the day all of this will happen, it will be overshadowed on all the news programs on TV, radio and news websites by the news that a group of pigs were seen flying from Germany to France – and all of them were listening to their favorite music – on iPods!

Click this way for more information on Apple’s latest legal dispute.
{moscomment}