  | I don't know about you, but I'm bored rigid with the further developments on the European iTunes DRM debacle. MacUSer is reporting
Norway has given Apple five more weeks in which to respond to claims that the iTunes Music Store breaches consumer protection laws.
The country's consumer ombudsman had set a deadline of June 21. This has now been put back to August 1, Reuters reports, though it doesn't give any reason for the extension.
Norway's final decision could force Apple to change the terms and conditions of the music downloads service is being watched carefully by consumer groups in Sweden and Denmark.
'We know our Norwegian colleagues are prepared to take the issue to court and of course if they get a ruling in Norway it will be very interesting for us because our consumer laws are so similar,' Marlene Winter of Denmark's National Consumer Agency told Reuters.
I know it's European Mac News but I'm seriously considering making the EuroMac a DRM news free podcast.
Music lovers in the UK can sleep a little easier in their beds knowing there's no longer any risk of being sued for ripping CDs. If, that is, they're using their own CDs and ripping for their own use.
This reassurance was given last week, by Peter Jamieson, chairman of the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) - the record-industry's trade association - in evidence to the House of Commons select committee for culture, media and sport.
Jamieson said, “Traditionally the recording industry has turned a blind eye to private copying and has used the strength of the law to pursue commercial pirates. We believe that we now need to make a clear and public distinction between copying for your own use and copying for dissemination to third parties and make it unequivocally clear to the consumer that if they copy their CDs for their own private use in order to move the music from format to format we will not pursue them.”
He also called on Apple to make its music downloads compatible with music players other than its own, saying, “We would advocate that Apple opts for interoperability”.
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