Apple's growing problem in Europe over restrictions on iTunes users is once again exposing the vast cultural difference we've seen before between European and American attitudes toward EULAs and sneakwrap licensing. Basically, those crazy Europeans seem to believe that customers should actually have a few rights, even in the digital sphere.
While most of the attention in Apple's struggles first with France and now Scandinavian countries centers on Apple's DRM keeps iTunes users from using portable music players other than the iPod, the legal challenge facing Apple goes deeper than that. Consumer agencies in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark are arguing that the iTunes terms of service are fundamentally unfair. Such standard sneakwrap fare as Apple waving all responsibility for damages caused by its service or claiming the right to change its terms in the future without warning don't sit well with the laws that protect European customers.
"Consumers are given few or no rights, whilst the vendor, iTunes, reserves a number of rights, some of which are unreasonable," wrote Torgeir Waterhouse of the Consumer Council of Norway, the organization that brought the complaint against iTunes. "ITunes is able to alter your rights to music that you have already bought. This is breach of fundamental principles of contract law. ITunes also blocks consumers from breaking the copy protection, or DRM, if they want to use other MP3 players than Apple's iPod. This is a clear breach of the Copyright Act. Consumers are barred from lodging compensation claims if iTunes' software creates security holes that can be exploited by computer viruses. This is a very real issue, which was most recently highlighted by the case of Sony BMG's latest DRM, XCP."
Apple has until August 1 to respond to the Scandinavian consumer agencies, and it will be very interesting to see if they agree to make any changes to the iTunes terms of service as they apply in those countries. And if Apple does have to change its ways in Europe, will all the other American firms doing business there with sneakwrap terms that are at least as bad as Apple's have to do likewise?
It seems at least a hopeful possibility. "A trade agreement with a consumer must be balanced, also in the digital sphere," Waterhouse wrote. "The Consumer Council has seen a trend where terms of agreement, technical blocks and their legal protection have led to a reduction in the rights of consumers and their opportunities to use cultural material. The digital rights of consumers have been dictated by the industry for a long time. This decision marks the start of a struggle to recover them."
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