Norway Deems iTunes As Illegal, Based on Non-Operability With Other Devices

This is the first such definitive country action against Apple and its iTunes store: Norway's powerful consumer ombudsman ruled that its iTunes was illegal because it did not allow downloaded songs to be played on rival companies’ devices, reports FT. This could lead to other European countries, already sitting on the fence on this, to review the situation.

The ombudsman has set a deadline of Oct 1 for the Apple to make its codes available to other technology companies so that it abides by Norwegian law. If it fails to do so, it will be taken to court, fined and eventually closed down.
Meanwhile Norwegian Consumer Council, who originally launched the complaint, is in negotiations with pan-European consumer groups to present a unified position on iTunes’ legality, the story says. Sweden and Finland have already backed Norway’s stance, but have yet to take action, and the campaign was joined on Wednesday by Germany and France.

OutLaw: “It doesn’t get any clearer than this. Fairplay is an illegal lock-in technology whose main purpose is to lock the consumers to the total package provided by Apple by blocking interoperability,” said Torgeir Waterhouse of the Council. “For all practical purposes this means that iTunes Music Store is trying to kill off one the most important building blocks in a well functioning digital society, interoperability, in order to boost its own profits.”

Finally - Norway ahead of the crowd! I'm so proud! Now, all that remains is to demand that Napster etc also removes it's Windows based DRM system....

UPDATE:
Not just iTunes

Many other music download services operate with similar terms and conditions. “CDON.com, prefueled.com and MSN.no are examples of other affected services. We are therefore asking the Consumer Ombudsman to investigate the terms and conditions of these download services,” says Torgeir Waterhouse.

Read more here.