Norwegian ombudsman to review iTunes terms of service

The Consumer Council of Norway, an independent consumer watchdog group, has asked the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman to review the license terms under which songs from the iTunes Music Store are sold -- among other things, these terms allow Apple to change the terms under which you can use the music you buy after you buy it:

In order to purchase music from iTunes the consumer has to agree to a set of terms. After a review of these terms the Consumer Council of Norway found several of to be highly questionable.

- The terms of use are unreasonable so we are asking the Consumer Ombudsman to use § 9a of The Marketing Control Act to force a change of the terms, says senior advisor Torgeir Waterhouse.

- iTunes can change the your rights to the music after you downloaded it. This is a violation of basic Principles of consumer contract law. Consumers who wants to play they're music on a non-iPod player must first remove the copy protection, this removal for legitimate private use is however stopped buy iTunes DRM technology and Terms of Use. iTunes stopping this removal for legitimate private use like playing the music on a non-iPod mp3 player is obviously in violation of the Copyright Act, says Waterhouse.

The Consumer Council of Norway find the terms to be unbalanced and highly in favour of iTunes as one party in the entered agreement.

- The consumer is granted few or no rights while iTunes provides itself with several unfair rights according to Waterhouse.

Link (Thanks, Jo!)

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