More EU Action Against Apple

And yet another dumb-ass politician with no clue whatsoever is starting a campaign against Apple. Again the iTunes Music Store (ITMS) is the victim in this crusade. A certain Meglena Kuneva is complaining about the fact that music bought at the ITMS can only be played on the iPod.

Well, Meglena Kuneva, I got some considerations for you:

• Music bought in the ITMS can be played on Windows and Apple platforms (iTunes, which is free).


• 5 platforms can be authorized to play these songs. This means that you can buy 1 song and play it legally on your work, at home, on your laptop, on your wife's PC etc.


• Music bought in music stores selling the MS flavor (PlayForSure) can ONLY be played on Windows platforms.


• ITMS music can be burned on CD's by default, lot's of MS flavors won't allow that. There are some limitations on burning when you're burning playlists.


• Music burned to CD can be ripped to MP3, and can be played on ANY mp3 player.


• Music protected with PlayForSure solution, can't even be played on their own Zune media player, so you have to buy the song(s) multiple times.

The biggest advance is that there are no different flavors of FairPlay. The MS DRM can be different on each song. Sometimes you're not allowed to do anything but listen to it on you're PC, while other implementations allow you to do more with the music. This is nice, but when you have plenty of songs, how do you keep the limitations apart?

An accurate list with the Apple FairPlay DRM limitations can be found here.