Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) is launching a new iTunes service. If a consumer owns a song downloaded to an iPod for the $.99 fee, that user can get the whole album for $9.99. Any songs on the album count as a $.99 credit toward the total price if they were purchased in the preceding 180 days.

The new service is called "Complete My Album." The only little catch is that any $.99 song being used for a credit must have been purchased from iTunes.

Apple is already in hot water in France for not allowing its iPod to play music from other devices. The Financial Times puts the French objection this way: "The competition policy bureaucrats squeeze Apple's achievement into this box: they sell a product that is so popular it is dominant; this market power is then exploited by excluding rivals from using its software (iTunes) . . ."

Continue reading Is Apple's new album download service anti-competitive?

Is Apple's new album download service anti-competitive? originally appeared on BloggingStocks on Thu, 29 Mar 2007 13:08:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.