By Jo Best, 25 February 2005 13:40
NEWS The European Union has launched an investigation into the iTunes online music store, after the Office of Fair Trading referred complaints to the EC over Apple's UK pricing.
The EC has announced that it is investigating iTunes' pricing structure, which sees UK customers paying some pence more than their counterparts who pay with euros. A single track from the UK iTunes store costs 79p, whereas the same song from the French or German iTunes stores costs 99 euro cents or around 68p.
The 11p price differential, and the fact that UK consumers can't buy from European iTunes stores without a European billing address, could mean Apple is breaking European law.
The Consumers Association initially reported Apple to the OFT in September, claiming it is using an anti-competitive and discriminatory pricing structure.
Apple declined to comment on the investigation.
Comments
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1. anonymous
Well Apple says that it's the record companies that set the pricing in different parts of the EU.
It will be interesting to see how this pans out as the record companies (Sony, Universal, et al) will either a) change their structure to allow free trade across borders , or b) tell Apple to take the beating (my money is on b).
2. Karen Challinor
Nothing new there we routinely pay more in the UK for things sold in the rest of the EU for less.
The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, more or less guarantees manufacturers & creators the right to charge what they think they can get away with in the uk as it prevents you sourcing goods abroad and importing them without their permission. Otherwise it would be possible to purchase goods abroad, import them, pay transport, pay import duty and still resell the goods for less than the price you'd normally pay in this country.
This iTunes thing is just an example of the same logic being applied to a case where it shouldn't apply.
I would say "welcome to rip off britain" but as you've lived here all your life you should know this already
3. Simon
I think its damned outrageous, we should all be disgusted and boycott Apple entirely until they sort it out and refund the difference.
In fact we should boycott all proprietary formats until they sort themselves out and come up with one useful format that works across all devices and players.
4. Simon
If it is the record companies setting the pricing, I don't see Apple taking the rap - all they have to do is open their books and show the EU what the record companies are chanrging them, then the EU can go and deal with the record companies instead.
5. Muggaboo
Well they could allow us to shop at the european stores but the price we would pay would not be 11p different, closer to 5p.
If you used you current account or credit card to pay in euros you get charged the common tourist exchange rate where £1 = EURO 1.377 rather than the offical EURO 1.45.
So the cost becomes 71.9p. Add to this a 3% charge (which most banks / credit cards charge) and the price you pay is 74p. So only a 5p saving against a reported 11p saving.
6. Emmon Simbo
No wonder people choose to download songs for free than pay over the top prices like iTunes store charge. What makes it even more galling, as your editorial says, is the fact that our European and world neighbours pay cheaper for their songs. I guess there's the factor of its only 79p a song but when you purchase as many songs as I recently did, 79p can multiply rapidly. I do hope something is done about this by the OFT and Apple do really need to sort out this discrepancy.