Senior advisor Torgeir Waterhouse of the Norwegian Consumer Council has responded to Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ open letter concerning digital rights management and free music, which the executive published earlier today. “We’re happy to see Steve Jobs take on the responsibility that follows from Apple’s role as one of the leading companies in the digital sphere and comment on the complaint issued by the Norwegian Consumer Council,” Waterhouse told MacNN, referring to Jobs’ letter. “Our concern is of course that it’s Apple and [the] iTunes Music Store [that] should be addressing the issue of record companies and DRM themselves if it needs to be addressed – and as we’ve stated earlier it’s iTunes Music Store that’s providing a service to the consumers and therefore has the responsibility to offer up a consumer friendly product.”
Responding to Apple’s chief about the Cupertino-based company’s closed iPod/iTunes ecosystem, the senior advisor says Jobs’ claim that consumers aren’t locked into using Apple’s own products when they purchase music from the iTunes store is a contradiction, since the point and function of FairPlay — Apple’s digital rights management (DRM) — is to lock the music purchased from the iTunes store to work exclusively on iPods.
“[Steve Jobs] also goes on to turn the whole issue on its head by stating iPod owners are not locked into [the] iTunes Music Store – the issue our complaint [addresses] is of course the opposite, iTunes Music Store customers are locked to the iPod.”
Apple’s CEO argued that Apple, Microsoft, and Sony all compete with proprietary systems and that music purchased from each store will only play on that company’s hardware. Waterhouse effectively expressed that Apple is not free from fault simply because it is not alone in its proprietary ventures, and that the iTunes store as well as other closed music offerings are unfair to consumers.
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