Apple And The European Commission
Yesterday, Apple made its case in a closed door hearing before the European Commission in a matter involving iTunes. According to Bloomberg:
Eddy Cue, Apple’s vice president of iTunes, defended the company’s use of national online music stores, which charge different prices for songs downloaded in the United Kingdom and the rest of the 27-nation EU. During a closed-door hearing Wednesday in Brussels, Belgium, Apple blamed national laws for preventing the company from reaching its goal of operating a pan-European iTunes store, said Alan Hely, an Apple spokesman in the U.K.“We think anyone should be able to buy from any store,” Apple Chief Executive Steve Jobs said at the news conference in Berlin. “We agree completely with the European Commission’s view that anyone in Europe should be able to buy music in any other stores.”
The commission, the EU’s antitrust regulator, said in April that Apple and the four largest music companies illegally restrict where iTunes customers can buy songs. Under EU rules, companies can be fined as much as 10 percent of annual sales for agreeing to restrict competition along national markets.
Apple said it is prevented from operating a pan-European iTunes store because of copyright restrictions.
“Unfortunately, the music and publishing companies said they couldn’t license us their music on terms that would enable us to achieve this,” Hely said. “Apple is simply abiding by these licensing terms and national copyright laws.”
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