Consumer groups in Germany, France, Norway, and Finland are in talks with consumer authorities in Sweden, Denmark, and the U.K. The countries are pressuring Apple for a unified iTunes policy in Europe. At the top of the list of demands is interoperability. The only way to get music to non-iPod devices takes four steps: download to PC, burn to CD, rip back to PC and finally load to music player. For computer illiterate users, which easily make up the majority of iTunes customers, that"s asking too much.
"Several consumer agencies in Europe have taken action separately against Apple"s policy of locking iTunes customers to a single brand of music player, the iPod. By uniting, we believe we"ll be able to create greater pressure for Apple to accept our demands," said Katia Mrowka, legal expert at the Federation of German Consumer Organizations.