Apple to settle EU/iTunes case

The EU is going to change the european market, as you can se here: http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/5&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

A same price for every european store is just another step in that direction.

Well, we could pay our songs ~70€ cents rather than 0.99$... But anyway, this is a good thing I suppose. What really misses me though, is to be able to download movies and/or tv shows. Come on, it's been available in the US for what, like 2 years now? Is the EU SO retarded?

The issue isn't the differing prices in different EU stores, Apple is allowed to charge whatever they like in each store.

What Apple can not do is limit someone in one EU member state purchasing a track from a store in another EU member state.

It doesn't matter what the record companies state in their contracts with Apple, any terms that require such national restrictions would be ruled unlawful should the case go to court.

The only way i can see for Apple to settle the matter with the EU is for them to lift the restrictions on purchasing from different stores.

A pan-European store wouldn't work as different rights holders may exist for the same track in each country. However allowing purchases from non-national stores would enable payments to be made to the rights holder in the country of purchase, exactly as is done for physical media today.

"So does this mean that we'll soon see iTunes Europe rather than the mishmash of individual country stores? It's not out of the question."

I feel it is out of the question. The music markets are different in the UK compared to, say, Germany. German language popular music is not popular in the UK, while it is in the UK. Jobs made specific note of this when launching the stores in London a few years ago.

Also, there are different currencies involved - British consumers aren't going to be keen on a store in euros, and nor the French etc on a store in sterling. Nor, indeed, one in English…

Now everyone will pay more, yay!

€0.99 works out as about £0.74 and to be honest I am more annoyed by $0.99 in USA than overpaying 5 pennies, but every change for the better is more than welcome