European Union pens price warning to music companies

BUREAUCRATS IN BRUSSELS are readying quill and ink to pen lengthy scrolls inquiring into the inequity of Apple selling bits of notes strung together at different prices within the territories and dependencies.

That news comes hard and fast after EMI and Apple duly announced that people could have DRM free music if they paid a little more for the privilege. Why people have to pay a little more still remains a mystery.

Warner, Vivendi, EMI, Sony BMG, and Vivendi have all received parchments of the finest European vellum telling them it is obviously totally out of order for people in different countries to pay different prices depending where they live.

Mind you, the EU hasn't done very much to equalise the different areas of value added tax (VAT) to its subject states, causing a huge amount of fraud as crooks shuttle goods around the Wrekin, and funnel refunds on VAT into their own pockets at taxpayers' expense.

There are all sorts of tax inequities in Europe which fly in the face of the popular aphorism that every cloud has a silver lining.

EMI denies any wrongdoing while the other three firms have their buttocks firmly clenched and are believed to be resistant to the end of DRM. Microsoft and Intel haven't yet voiced their opinion about DRM, but both firms have proved themselves to be particularly gutless on this matter in the past.