Apple last night reportedly blamed pesky European taxes for the iTunes Store pricing policy that yesterday brought it to a European Commission antitrust hearing. Apple’s iTunes global president Eddy Cue and general counsel Donald Rosenberg joined Universal Music and Sony BMG in Brussels to give an oral response to the commission’s April ”statement of objection”, in which it complained to Apple and the four major labels that customers can only buy digital songs from their home nation’s iTunes Store and not from others across the continent. This would break article 18 of the EC Treaty governing restrictive business practices - and means British customers must pay £0.79 ($1.58) per track versus the EUR 0.99 ($1.37) enjoyed in the eurozone, for example. An Apple spokesperson yesterday told The Times of London: ”Unfortunately, the music and publishing companies said they couldn’t license us their music on terms that would enable us to achieve (pan-European pricing). Apple is simply abiding by these licensing terms and national copyright laws.”http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-apple-blames-labels-then-taxes-for-european-itunes-price-differences/
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