Apple is again under fire by the European Union over the company’s Fairplay digital rights management (DRM). Fairplay only allows you to listen or view content purchased on the iTunes store on PCs and Macs loaded with iTunes or on iPods.

In an interview to be published this week in Germany’s weekly Focus magazine, the European Union Consumer Protection Commissioner Meglena Kuneva lashes out at Apple, accusing it of anti-competitive behavior.

“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,” she is quoted as saying. Though this is her personal opinion, not the official position of the Consumer Commission.

Consumer rights organizations around Europe are ganging up against Apple. Organizations from Germany, France, Finland and Norway have a greed on a joint position in their battle to force Apple to make Fairplay more fair. Their contention is that Apple is limiting consumers’ use of songs bought on iTunes by not allowing them to play the songs on media players from other manufacturers.

Steve Jobs recently posted an open letter on the Apple’s web site calling on music companies to ditch DRM. Of course he was promptly savaged by the music industry, and one commentator,Brier Dudley at the Seattle Times accused Jobs of “posturing as European countries look into whether Apple is breaking their laws by forcing iPod owners to use iTunes”.

For a long time Apple, right or wrongly, was perceived to be one of the good guys. But with persistent attacks by European consumer organizations, and other interested commentators, Apple is rapidly getting a reputation of being stubbornly anti-competitive and arrogant, and this surely, can’t be good for its image, or for its business, in the longer term.

Related:

Entry was posted on Sunday, March 11th, 2007 at 2:30 pm under Apple, Online video.

Read more entries by Staff reporters.
Stumble It!