Europe Commission Wants a Pan European iTunes Store, 27/05/2009 - Your reactions

[linathael]

When Apple launched its iTunes Store in Europe, the company was most likely not expecting to have to face so many specific local laws and had to adjust its services based on them. It has created many issues on which we already reported, such as the price difference between the UK itunes Store and the other EU iTunes Store. Things might become easier in the future as European Institutions wants to make digital music a product able to cross internal EU borders the same way as any other product. 
In a document published online, Apple indicates it may start selling digital music via an unified Pan European iTunes Store, however, the company will have to obtain licensing rights and/or agreements from ALL publishers and music royalty collecting societies belonging to the 27 nations forming EU. It seems that the EC would help Apple to bring the iTunes Store to all EU countries, recent EU members are not having access to the iTS yet. If one considers that there are only couple of Music Majors worldwide, most of them being EU companies, it should be possible to find a solution. The EC might also ask nations to unify their policies for their local music royalty collecting societies. The latest will have to answer to such proposal, and quickly. It remains weird to consider that a French customer can not order from the UK iTunes Store, however, he can order the same album as a CD from a UK online shop at no extra cost... In other words, Majors did not integrate music online store in their business models yet, or maybe just enough to claim piracy makes their margins shrinking.

By linathael, original by linathael