iTunes runs into trouble in Norway [LWN.net]

iTunes runs into trouble in Norway

Posted Jun 15, 2006 22:15 UTC (Thu) by thomask (guest, #17985)
Parent article: iTunes runs into trouble in Norway

This is geographical discrimination of consumers, and an artificial barrier to trade. Both are at odds with EU free-competition law.

That's interesting. As a citizen of the UK, I am not permitted to buy an inter-rail ticket for Europe from http://www.raileurope.com/ - only from http://www.interrail.co.uk/. Interestingly, the price difference for a youth ticket valid for 1 month seems to be $525 USD (£285) for Europeans versus $634 for non-Europeans. IANAL, but it looks as if by the same principle this would be against EU free-competition law too. On the other hand, perhaps EU competition law is crafted in such a way that companies within the EU must always benefit. As if the EU's protectionist schemes hadn't done enough harm already...

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iTunes runs into trouble in Norway

Posted Jun 16, 2006 9:04 UTC (Fri) by ekj (guest, #1524) [Link]

I think you're rigth. There's a lot of artificial barriers erected by companies wishing to sell the same product to different customers for different prices.

Many of these are, under my understanding of EU-law, illegal. The question is if they'll be cracked down upon in practice. The DVD-CSS is *also* used to be able to sell the same movie in different markets at different price-points and different release-dates, for example.

iTunes runs into trouble in Norway

Posted Jun 18, 2006 11:31 UTC (Sun) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

AIUI, competition law in the EU merely forbids differentiating between different coutries within Europe (the single market idea). So you can't charge someone in Finland a different price than someone in France. I don't think it has anything to say about discriminating EU vs non-EU.

Doing that would almost amount to forbidding any kind of discrimiation at all. But that's obviously silly, since you may not want to sell stuff to Africa or Asia, but you're not allowed to refuse to sell to a fellow European (for purely geographical reasons).

iTunes runs into trouble in Norway

Posted Jun 22, 2006 7:24 UTC (Thu) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

But the OP here is talking about discrimination INSIDE the EU.

As a Brit, I should be able to go to *ANY* EU web site and buy stuff off it. Here he says that doesn't work for rail tickets. I'm inclined to agree that that is a breach of the Trade Directives.

There are problems, however, like liability etc. Are your legal rights that of your state, or the state of the vendor, or what? There's VAT problems on customer sales ... (think of the booze cruisers for a very good example :-)

The Free Market is badly distorted by taxes and stuff even within the EU. Until they sort that out, it'll be hard to have free and fair intra-EU cross-border trade.

Cheers,
Wol

iTunes runs into trouble in Norway

Posted Jun 22, 2006 8:29 UTC (Thu) by kleptog (subscriber, #1183) [Link]

Maybe, but in any case I'm in Holland and I can't buy an Interrail ticket from the site mentioned either. In fact, looking at the two sites, they're not selling the same things. The RailEurope site doesn't mention Interrail at all. And the Interrail site doesn't sell Eurail passes. If he's saying that he can't buy a Eurail pass from RailEurope, then he may have a point, but that's not what he said.

As for warrenty, liability or VAT, obviously the location of the seller is what counts. That's not unreasonable, the buyer is allowed to discriminate, the seller is not. If you don't like the terms, buy from somewhere else.

The booze-cruises are simply an excellent example of the system working and buyers taking advantages of the situation. No-one is doing anything illegal and it encourages countries to get their acts together.

Norway is not in the EU...

Posted Jun 22, 2006 20:14 UTC (Thu) by alextingle (guest, #20593) [Link]

...it's only a member of EFTA. Different rules apply.