As EMI and Apple were in London possibly allaying concerns that have been growing in some European political circles regarding the interoperability issues caused by DRM in the digital music space, European Commission officials in Brussels confirmed they'd sent formal charges to Apple and unnamed record companies regarding another area of concern in the legitimate download sector - the fact that music fans are not always able to choose from all the download stores operating across the European market, rather, in many cases, they only have access to those that operate in their home country - which is a pain for us Brits when UK based download stores are nearly always more expensive than those on mainland Europe.
And that fact is at the heart of this EC investigation, which was kicked off by consumer rights types Which? back in 2005 when they pointed out that iTunes users in Britain, who pay 79 pence per track (about 116 eurocents), are worse off than iTunes users in France or Germany who pay 99 eurocents. And, crucially, British customers are unable to take their business to the French and German services in order to get the better price because access to different iTunes stores is controlled by your IP address - ie, users in the UK can only access the UK store.
Confirming that the European Commission had issued charges in relation to this issue, a spokesman said yesterday: "Consumers can only buy music from the iTunes online stores in their country of residence and are therefore restricted in their choice of where to buy music, and consequently what music is available and at what price".
Apple were quick to respond to the EC action by pointing out (and rightly, if my memory serves me right) that it was the record companies who insisted that access to different iTunes stores was limited by the country where users were based, and that they had originally wanted to launch a pan-European service. A spokesman for the computer firm told reporters: "Apple has always tried to operate a single pan-European iTunes stores accessible by anyone from any member state. But we were advised by the music labels and publishers that there were certain legal limits to the rights they could grant us".
The record companies are yet to respond.