You know, you UK people, we love ya like pancakes, but honestly, can't you tell some of your more uptight countryfolk to unclench and give it a rest, already? Remember, guys, we sympathized completely when it seemed like Apple was out to get you, what with the rampant layoffs and canceled OS localizations and backing out of London Mac trade shows every ten or twelve minutes. So we were willing to overlook that little bit of business with banning Apple's Power Mac commercial on the basis that the G5 might conceivably not be "the world's fastest, most powerful personal computer." Funny how whoever complained didn't much seem to mind the implication that a G5 can blow a mostly-grown man clear through several walls of a house without causing any apparent injury other than some black stuff on the face and a funny hairstyle; still, like we said, the UK's been slighted by Apple before, so we let it drop.

But now things are just getting ugly. Apple fought for probably well over a year to bring the iTunes Music Store to the UK, but apparently some members of the local populace aren't all that impressed; faithful viewer Adam Buckley was the first of a gazillion people to send us a link to a BBC News article which reveals that the UK Consumer's Association is all in a snit over iTMS pricing. According to the association, 79 pence a pop (roughly $1.42 in "Bloody Colonials" currency) is just too darn expensive-- specifically, it's 20% more expensive than Apple charges per song in France and Germany, and that's allegedly a violation of European Union "single market" rules, which require that goods be sold at uniform pricing throughout all EU countries. Therefore, the association was gone whining to the Office of Fair Trading (we're guessing Better Business Bureau meets FTC) to investigate.

In a strictly technical sense, Apple might well be able to argue that the song it sells to a German customer is not the same as the song it sells to a UK one; sure, they might sound identical, but from a wholesale procurement standpoint, since the songs themselves are currently licensed to Apple on a per-country basis for sale only locally by the record labels in each country, Apple has different licensing costs and terms wherever it wants to open up shop. In other words, Apple couldn't sell, for example, an iTMS France track in the UK even if it wanted to; the French songs are licensed for French consumption only. We don't know how the EU rules are worded, but the truth of the matter is that Apple is not just selling the same item in two countries and charging two different prices. If it were that simple to sell digital music, 1) the iTMS would have the same catalog in each country (which it most certainly does not) and 2) the iTMS would be everywhere on the globe by now. Yes, even Canada.

So if anything, these consumer watchdog groups with too much time on their hands should be siccing the EU on the record labels for not licensing their catalogs for sale across the continent. Nevertheless, here's Phil Evans of the Consumers' Association, following his appeal to the OFT to smack Apple down for "overcharging" the Brits: "If the OFT agrees it will be another example of the rip-off culture that the British public are often victims of." Oh, "waaah waaah waaah, we're all victims here." C'mon, Phil-- to quote Basil Fawlty, is that what made Britain great?

Maybe once the pan-European iTMS gets underway next month this whole matter will be moot anyway, since every EU country will apparently be able to buy any iTMS Europe song for 99€, and we'd imagine that, despite the currency difference, that should include the UK (who otherwise would have no business harping on about EU trade rules). In the meantime, everyone who has a problem with iTMS pricing and absolutely zero appreciation of how many flaming legal hoops Apple has had to jump through in all these countries to get something as cool as the iTMS running in the first place should probably just go back to making their own music by banging rocks against hollow logs while wailing.