French Court Rules Sony’s Portable Music Player & Download Service Breach Linked Sales Laws

A French court ruled that Sony's tying sales of music to a single type of portable music player, breached French law forbidding such "linked sales".  The Court also ruled that Sony mislead its customers by not making it clear on its portable music player packaging that it could only play music downloaded from Sony's own Connect music store. 

Importantly, the court did not go so far as to forbid the use of DRM, however.  

Sony was ordered to: (i) pay a fine of 10,000 euros ($13,000); (ii) henceforth state on its music-player packaging that the product only play songs downloaded from Sony's own Connect music store; and (iii) publish the information on its French website homepage.

Sources: The Australian | AgroVox | Euro2Day | Daily India | Washington Times | MSNBC

Related Posts:

• French Court Rules Sony's Portable Music Player & Download Service Breach Linked Sales Laws (January 8, 2007)
• Apple iTunes DRM-Antitrust Case to Continue (Tucker v. Apple) (January 8, 2007)
• Apple Sued Over iTunes DRM Lock-in (January 6, 2005)

Digg Del.icio.us