Norway Declares iTunes DRM Illegal

Kudos to the Norwegians on taking a stand against DRM. They’ve just declared iTunes illegal because of it.

In a bold move against iTunes’ DRM, called Fairplay, the Norwegian Consumer Council has deemed it illegal in Norway, with France and Germany possibly following suit.

Norway isn’t happy with Apple’s DRM technology that restricts play of files downloaded from its iTunes Store to only iPods [when away from the computer]. Because other portable players are not allowed to play the files, Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman Bjørn Erik Thon has declared Apple’s Fairplay technology is anything but.

“I understand that a company feels the need to protect its products from piracy,” said Thon in 2006. “However, this should not negatively affect customers who through lawful means have obtained downloaded files. Today, iTunes´ use of DRM technology renders the customers without rights in dealing with a company which on a whim can dictate what kind of access customers will have to products they have already paid for.”

If you have kids, have them read The Pig and the Box. It’s a children’s book that’ll teach them the folly of DRM before corporate propaganda can get to them.

A Nastygram for Google Juice

The arrogance of traditional ecommerce never ceases to amaze me. Dean Hunt’s blog happens to rank high in Google SERPs for a certain keyword, and some company wants him to “remove your blog from google for this search term [sic].”

Hold on, it gets better. Their rationale? “An online business should be higher in Google than a blog [sic].” So selling something “should” automatically take priority over saying something? Even the most arrogant salesman knows you have to say something before you sell something!

You can’t make up stuff like this. Here’s the original email exchange for your reading pleasure. Click here to continue reading “A Nastygram for Google Juice”…