Slashdot Mirror
France To Force iTunes to Open to Other Players?
JordanL writes "It appears that France is pushing through a law that some feel may force Apple to open iTunes to other players. From the article: 'Under a draft law expected to be voted in parliament on Thursday, consumers would be able to legally use software that converts digital content into any format. It would no longer be illegal to crack digital rights management -- the codes that protect music, films and other content -- if it is to enable to the conversion from one format to another.'"
Music downloaded from Apple's iTunes online music store currently can only be played on iPods. ...and Macs and Windows PCs using any application that uses QuickTime, including iTunes and (I believe) recent versions of RealPlayer.
The law, if enacted, could prompt Apple to shut its iTunes store in France, some industry observers say, to keep from making songs vulnerable to conversion outside France, too.
If Apple had to shut down iTMS in France, its competition would have to shut down for the same reason.
"The person who will have converted iTunes songs will be able to make it available elsewhere," Marc Guez, head of the French Collecting Society for Music Producers rights (SCPP) told Reuters.
Not legally. The music is still protected by copyright law. Currently, the DRM can be removed illegally, and then the music can be illegally shared. Making the first step legal doesn't make the second step legal.
The law would also mean that other online French music retailers such as Fnac, part of PPR, would have to make iTunes songs available on their Web sites.
Can anyone translate this from journalist-speak to tech-speak for me? What exactly would Fnac have to make available?
Police agents can monitor music exchange Web sites and trace back the email address of beneficiaries by asking the Internet service provider for it through a court order.
Presumably they meant they can ask the ISP for the billing information of the customer who was using a particular IP address (not e-mail address), which the police agents obtained through monitoring P2P services (not Web sites).
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Seems sensible enough to me, even though the precedent set by a law of this sort would put the international IP cartels in a foul mood. Aw shucks.
Were this sort of law(and its associated precedents) to become common in other EU member nations . . . oh, the possibilities.
L'iPod est mortes, vive l'iPod!
It appears that France is pushing through a law that some feel may force Apple to open iTunes to other players.
French = Freedom. I think that's already been established by the US Congress.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
Look, iTunes is popular, as are ipods. First, one could easily enough say they are independantly popular. They do feed off each other a bit, but both were pioneers that succeeded in their own right.
Secondly, while I could definately seen reasoning that you should be able to format-shift, I don't see why people have an automatic 'right' to conversion. I mean, it shouldn't be illegal to format-shift, but neither should Apple be required to put a sytem in place to do so. There are plenty of ways for me to move to a different format. Generally, some quality loss is involved, but no more than format-shifting between physical mediums had (such as tape to CD, CD to mp3, etc).
Good.
The article only mentions that Apple would have to allow people to convert their songs into other formats. Does that also apply to Microsoft and other companies? If it applies to all digital media, then this law will effectively end all digital rights management!
I vote to change our "freedom fries" to "french fries"!
I also think that whole "fance surrenders" thing was silly too.
Take the cheese to sickbay, the doctor should see it as soon as possible - B'Elanna Torres, "Learning Curve"
I mean, poor little Apple has not got its share by illegal means unlike some but by making better products, so its entitled to it.
Who would want to run an iTune on anything other than an iPod anyway, it would be like putting a lawnmower engine in a Ferrari.
We don't want choice of what machines to play music on, we just want one good machine.
The unique selling point is the integrated experience, its the whole system, the iPod, the iMac, the iTunes, its not any one of them, its the whole thing.
They are no more expensive than comparably equipped competitive products, its just that they sell for more because they give you more.
Anyway, you can play them on other machines if you really really want to, though why you would is beyond me.
Well, now someone got all that out of the way, maybe we could have a discussion...? Because the implications are quite serious, not just for music. For the whole lockin approach. Once one country adopts this, first, it will be impossible to contain within its borders. Second, it will be impossible to contain it to music. It could get real interesting.
It seems to me that the French government is protecting consumer rights from music companies who just want to force their ways of protecting 'Intellectual Property'. Slashdot last year had a story about the Australian government introducing copyright amendment laws to make private copying of videos and TV shows (only for private purposes of course) legal.
"The law would also mean that other online French music retailers such as Fnac, part of PPR, would have to make iTunes songs available on their Web sites."
Fnac is a quite powerfull culture oriented retail group that has setup their own music file format. The point is that FNAC is one of the biggest music product seller in France. It has been proven by testers that Fnac salespersons were "not pushing at all" the Apple products and trying to push the products that were compatible with the online Fnac music store !
The law is just adding more anti-trust principles on digital music, so that corporate trust can not force people to by their own product and can not force the the people to by only at their shop.
I wish I had access to the draft of the bill in question (along with a good English translation) -- the article suggests several things which may or may not be true.
One of these suggestions is that Apple may have to stop running iTMS France in order to avoid compliance. However, it also states that other online stores would have to provide songs in a form that allows them to be played on the iPod.
Now I'm assuming that the primary music labels from outside of France would prefer to simply no longer license their works for digital download in France than allow providers to distribute music in an unencumbered format (such as MP3). Which would mean that the only way French law could permit other online music stores to provide music in iPod format would be for them to be allowed to use Fairplay.
This would mean that either Apple would be forced to license Fairplay to any online music store in France, or these companies will be permitted to reverse-engineer it. They would likewise need to be able to access a users Fairplay key.
In which case, the only way Apple may be able to avoid this whole mess would be to pull not only iTMS out of France, but the iPod as well. And I don't see Apple doing this.
The only way I see around this would be for all of the online music stores in France -- Apple's iTMS included -- to come up with a common, France-specific music DRM format. And while the added flexability would be of benefit to French digital music consumers, I'm not sure if having nation-specific DRM formats is going to be all that great of an idea.
Yaz.
This will more seriously affect services like Napster that work on the subscription basis.
Why keep up your subscription if you can download all the music you want and then keep it .
The only things certain in war are Propaganda and Death. You can never be sure which is which though
Really, this will make law firms all over the world filthy rich. Tons of laws will have to be passed and debated to deal with this. After all, from what I can imagine, this would in fact render DMCA useless in France. Therefore software can be written a by French firm that can remove the DRM from music files (such as iTunes and Windows Media). In I understand this correctly, then a legitimate product can be made available (such as DVD Jon's DRM remover for iTunes) and then theoretically sold elsewhere.
I'm not 100% sure, but I think DMCA does in fact cover the use of applications of this sort, but there's nothing that specifically says that a user couldn't provide key information to a french company and ask them to remove the protection for them. It should seem logical, that if a user uploads a copy of their music to a web site in France and the French website removes the DRM and transmits back the unprotected copy where both parties delete the original protected file, then the DMCA would not have actually been broken within the US and from what I understand, the exchange of music is theoretically legal, such as loaning a friend a CD for the weekend.
The Apple sponsered Legal and lobbiest firms (hopefully publicly traded) would make a bundle trying to pass laws to cover every loophole related to what this would open up.
The only real question is, whether it is in fact legal to read your own iPod identification code. As far as I can tell, since you do in fact own your iPod and it should be possible to maintain that you can in fact legally read product identification information from it, there shouldn't be a real issue.
I want to invest in the law and lobby firms that Apple is intending to employ to make the 100 new laws or law amendments in the US alone. Can someone please point me to who the likely candidates are. If I invest $100k in them, then I figure I can then afford to pay for my music and even the cost related to the removal of the protection too.
1) this would not be Itune specific but for EVERYBODY. The headline is inflamatorry. 2) if I remmember corerctly we have under fair use in France a right to format shift for backup purpose. I Could be wrong. But if I am not, then the automatic right for conversion is in the law. And putting DRM obstacle in the way would be, in regard to blank cd tax and other law recently made, then be either illegal or quite turning around the law the late being also frowned upon.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
</nelson>
IANAL, but could someone who understands this better explain how France proposes to marry this law up with the European Copyright Directive, which AIUI provides a DMCA-like law across the EU.
And decided to make themselves into geek paradise.
http://shade51.blogspot.com/
I'm afraid the article does not relate *at all* what happens in France at the moment, regarding DRM and "Internet piracy".
- la-licence-globale-repasse-la-trappe.html
The French parliament is currently discussing new laws, that will implement the EUCD directive, by forbidding and severly punishing any attempt to circumvent DRM protection and copyrighted material downloads. This project is called DADvSI.
Some MPs are even pushing to forbid the development, diffusion and the use of P2P software.
Lots of (artits, users, musicians, etc.) communities are opposed to all this.
MPs first voted against this project and adopted a global licence (monthtly fee for unrestricted private downloads), but the French minister of Culture said it was not acceptable and he had the parliament to re-discuss the project again.
More information (all in French) at:
http://fr.news.yahoo.com/10032006/7/projet-dadvsi
http://eucd.info/
http://lestelechargements.fr/
http://www.odebi.org/new/theme/
http://www.adami.fr/
I personally think iTunes and iPod are some of the best products of the 2000s, but nobody forces you to buy an iPod or to use iTunes. There are plenty of alternatives. Hundreds, probably.
I'm so glad I'm moving to France, where free speech actually means something still.
;-)
I returned to the UK from the USA nine months ago after getting fed up with the corporations owning the US government.
Soon France is going to be the only place in the world where you can use P2P (I couldn't even download Fedora 5t3 the other day as my UK ISP TalkTalk blocks BitTorrent) and actually listen to your own music!
That Linux box sitting on the end of my ADSL2+ connection in France is going to be really useful when I'm working in the UK
#include <sig.h>
Okay...so tell me where my logic falls awry. Apple develops a product (iPod) that requires a software interface (pragmatically speaking a 'driver' of sorts, which is iTunes)...why should iTunes be forced to work with any other product than its intended medium, the iPod? I understand issues of monopolization and anti-competitive action but this doesn't strike me as such. It simply strikes me as Apple developing a better product. Should certain software NOT be restricted to certain hardware?
Digidesign's ProTools recording software only works with Digidesign interfaces (or more recently, the M-Box by M-Audio). This is the same scenario, in my eyes. Should ProTools be forced to open to other DAW controllers and recording interfaces, or is it simply a form of patent protection that can be viewed as two pieces of an identical system, necessary to operate one another?
Am I missing a step?
From what I can glean from the article it would be legal or required to have a program that converts one DRM format to another, but I don't see how this would require an unencrypted version of the media.
Most likely all the DRM companies would come together to make a program that converts from each DRM to another, and probably impose a time on the key to ensure if company X's DRM is broken that doesn't allow a hole that all other DRM media can be drained out through.
I digress.
What this would do economically is allow all digital media to compete on an equal footing. Don't like the price of a song on Napster? try iTunes. Want the latest MS Plays for Sure device but have a backlog of iTunes media? just convert it over. This would give consumers choice in their digital media and break the lock in that currently exists.
From what I know of Apple is that they make almost no money on iTunes but a huge amount on hardware, so in theory this would allow them to use their iTunes's competitors to seel iPods. And from the MS side this would break the stranglehold that Apple currently has on the portable media market. In theory this looks like a win-win for everyone. But I don't expect anyone to go for this, in business if your competitor is winning that usually means you're losing. And what multi-billion dollar company wants to take that chance?
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.
What is really required is for the law to state unequivocally, once and for all that, as long as you own a recording on a legitimately-acquired medium sanctioned by the copyright holder, your "fair dealing" rights include the right to make an unlimited number of copies of that recording in alternative formats for your own use, and to perform any necessary step in the process: copyright would not be infringed unless you used a copy you had made in some way that you would not be permitted to use the original.
What would be even better would be a ban on DRM systems that prevent absolutely the exercise of Fair Dealing rights and/or copying under Special Licence {e.g., I have permission from the band Ocean Colour Scene to make copies of any of their work for my own use; any DRM system that does not take this into account, perhaps by requiring a password to enable copying, should be illegal}.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Governments still like to look like they run the world when really the world has been run by multinational corporations for decades. Governments just feel they have to be seen to flex their muscles every now and again with trading regulations or small wars to try to prove they still matter (the wars usually help their military industries anyway).
Successful businesses just adapt their strategies accordingly (strategically placed donations to political parties is one example!).
The French have a poor track record in wars (small or otherwise), this only gives the French Government trade laws as an option when trying to boost their popularity. Anything not French is fair game be it Apple or Microsoft as the French government plays on national pride. The French are "pro freedom" because it is not a technology that French companies control just as the US Govt take the opposite approach because the companies involved are predominently American.
I can't see why the article focuses on Apple while the law is obviously more general than that.
The draft law just states that any digital rights management system owner should provide device manufacturers access to its DRM system, for interoperability reasons.
So, for instance Apple could require from Microsoft that it provides a licence in order for the IPods to be able to play WMA files.
" Les licences de développement des mesures techniques de protection sont accordées aux fabricants de systèmes techniques ou aux exploitants de services qui veulent mettre en oeuvre l'interopérabilité, dans des conditions équitables et non discriminatoires, lorsque ces fabricants ou exploitants s'engagent à respecter, dans leur domaine d'activité, les conditions garantissant la sécurité de fonctionnement des mesures techniques de protection qu'ils utilisent. "
This law is not for French customers but for the majors.
The goal was to force DRM everywhere event if the content was a free WebRadio with free content.
The second goal was to allow justice actions against every software that could be used to break copyright laws. (aka : remove DRM, exchange files, etc, etc.)
The third goal was to track users who share and download files to make sanctions.
BUT
They tryed to vote the law the 23 december 2005 at 23h pm so nobody is at the parlement to oppose the law.
They declared this law "urgent" so no consultation is needed.
French associations mobilised and include an amandement to make file sharing LEGAL.
So the law project was blocked for a while.
Now, discussions in the parlement has come back again and the debate is ridiculous : some want DRM and sanctions and others want free filesharing with taxes.
I think this law project will be completely removed, but who knows ?
Wait the vote if you really want to know what my country will do about file sharing. For now, everything and it's contrary has been told.
Greatings
A French observer. (sorry for my english)
When both the Netherlands and Belgium just gave up the front grew too long and far for France to effectively resist an invasion so they surrendered to save their people from harm.
I am getting rather tired of this whole roll-over and surrendermyth. The Netherlands and Belgium didn't roll over and surrender they fought back and fought hard. They simply got overrun by a combination of massive airborne assaults, innovative commando operations and armored warfare on a scale and using tactics they were in no way prepared for. In addition, since their governments and military leaders had seriously neglected equipping their airforces in partickular with up-to-date weapons they also lost control of their airspace within a matter of days. What happened in France and the Low countries in 1940 was the result of a massive tactical, technological and organizatorial military reforms since Napoleon. To add insult to injury those reforms in Germany were in many ways the direct result of the de mitlitarization of the country dictated by the treaty of Versailles since it brought a whole generation of young military thinkers into positions/ranks they would not have had a chance to get in other armies. Making fun of the Belgians, Netherlanders, French, and yes even the British (Contrary to popular beleif they got their ass kicked as well in 1940) is pretty unfair. I am willing to lay odds to the fact that if there had been US troop in France in 1940 they would have gotten spanked by the Germans as well.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Servers hosted in France provide the translation service. FTP PUT your DVDs and iTunes, pull down translated DIVIX and FLAC ones, legally....
It's funny that all the "socialist-consumer friendly" laws happening in France right now are being enacted by the conservative government of our beloved leader Jacques "the great" Chirac.
Last fall we had a law making it easy for customers to get out of phone and tv contracts where it was not possible to cancel the contract before the renewal period (usually 12 months).
Keep in mind that elections are due next year and that for those unaware of French politics (although VERY funny) Chirac has been elected last time with 82% of the votes because he was facing our local facist Le Pen, so the left voters HAD to vote for Chirac in the second round of the presidential election of 2002.
Then Chirac promised he would not "forget" this and make a government for "everybody" and not just for his "side". Of course this was quickly forgotten and now with the elections coming he has to steer a little bit to the left after 5 years of "shut up I've been elected and I do what I want".
Additionally I work with Czech people and in Czech "Curak" pronouced "shurak" is very close to "sheerak" and means "Asshole", languages are great aren't they ? And Bush is pronounced like "bouche" in French which means "mouth" and also "liar" if you use it in "c'est une bouche" translated as "he's full of mouth"...
Bottom line is that France is rediscovering freedom for consumers instead of corporations because elections are coming up, but it's a good time to grab things...
Actually the French do have the right to a fair trial and freedom of speech. See http://www.hri.org/docs/ECHR50.html
I don't know whether Microsoft would be covered by this law or not, but Microsoft alreadly licenses its DRM to anyone that wants to use it (which would include Apple, if Apple wanted to add support of DRM WMAs to iPods). Apple is different since they don't allow their iTMS DRM to be used by anyone except themselves (specifically iTunes apps on Mac and Windows, and iPods).
So, Microsoft allows any manufacturer of portable digital music players to use its DRM while Apple does not.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
You can love France, and still hate the French.
Just like the only thing bad about the South, is Southerners.
The same thing has been happening in both sweden and Norway.
And atleast for Norways case, I don't actually think there's any doubt iTunes are breaking Norwegian law. I mean, seriously.. retro-actively changing the terms of a deal, and claiming the other party has no right to reject or get out the deal is as silly as it gets.
As it stands, if the iTunes EULA was legal and enforcable they could just add a clause saying 'Give us all your money!', and you'd be legally bound to do it.
"" How about taking the safety labels off everything, and let the stupidity-problem solve itself? """
http://ita.sf.net/
Actually our gouvernement wants to fuck us over...
It's the music industry who are pushing this pos of law...
...the music industry would stop the sale of CDs tomorrow (a generally un-DRMed format, despite the glaring exceptions.)
If people want iPods and their DRM'ed music format, then I say good luck to all parties concerned - Apple have identified a marketplace for such products & customers are prepared to pay for them.
Personally, although I use an MP3 player quite regularly, I won't buy an iPod because I won't be locked into using a proprietary music format using proprietary software on Windows only - I'd much rather have a less-featured MP3/OGG player that I can mount as a new drive in either Windows or Linux and copy across the tracks I rip from my music CDs.
The point I'm trying to make is that this is entirely a consumer decision, not legislative. It's up to the potential customer to keep him/herself informed before making any purchases and if you don't like certain aspects of a product, then don't buy it - it's that simple.
At this moment in time, I can rip any DVD or CD I currently own to play on whatever device I like and I'm therefore perfectly happy with the "fair use" I get from my movies & CDs - if what I am doing is against the law by circumventing DRM then so be it; if & when I'm caught doing it, I'll happily fight my case but my personal feeling is that it would never stand up in court where I own a legal copy of the original media.
By allowing governments to take control of this kind of issue leaves them open, at a later stage, to corporate lobbying & bribery. Plus I don't want the "Nanny State" removing me of even more of my own decision-making process as a well-informed, intelligent citizen.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
The article seems to have been written by someone with no grasp of logic. The proposed legislation seems to only declare that format shifting is legal. It in no way, shape, or form requires anything of anybody. How the hell does permitting people to do something morph in somebody's mind into forcing anybody to do anything?!? The conclusion that Apple will be forced to do anything seems to be a complete (il)logical leap on the part of the article's author.
Unfortunately, the slashdot summary and title for once accurately reflects the muddle of TFA, perpetuating the confusion with a title which doesn't follow from the summary.
Still, how cool is it to be able to make a ringtone from a legally purchased CD and not spend five years in the slammer for doing so!
No sig today...
Perhaps this item of news is being pushed as hard as possible by the french state, to try to make younger people feel that at least something is being done for their benefit.
After all, the government is currently debating a law that would remove employment rights from people under 26, they've got to do something to stop every single 16-25 year old turning out against them on polling day..
The main objective of this project it the legal protection of the "technical protection measures" (DRM) and the outlawing of their circumvention.
The french project though, goes much further in that direction than what the directive imposes, it is, in its current state, the most restrictive DMCA in the world!
The activists of the Free Software Foundation France founded the EUCD.INFO initiative to fight against those legal restriction that endengers the interoperability and the will of Free Software developpers.
This Vanneste guy is the "rapporteur", which means he is the one who wrote the law, and he is very unpleased that some of the EUCD.INFO amendements may be included in his project, rendering it an inoffensive version of the DMCA, comparable to the US one with some of the recent exceptions.
There is a long list of incredible things done by Vanneste (including being recognized guilty in his trial for homophobic declarations, protesting against a pacifist movie about the Algerian decolonization war with extreme-right folks, passing a law which recognize the positive role of colonization, etc...), and by the government (propaganda about "unlawful downloading" being the point of all this law project, opening a propaganda website about it which censors a so-called "democratic debate" where 95% of the comments are against that law project, removing amendements voted by the parliament which are in the opposite direction of the general restrictive axis, pushing amendments written by Vivendi-Universal, etc.)
I think you'll hear again about this DADVSI (the short name for "author's right and neighbour's right in the information society) law project, whatever the outcome may be!
...para seus serviços
re:"some feel may force Apple..."
"Some feel?"
"Some feel" that if you injest sufficient quantities of illegal drugs you can physically fly off buildings.
"Some feel" isn't news. Let me know when supposition is replaced with something better. Otherwise let me start cranking out headlines around here. "Some (nut-jobs who fell off their meds in SF) feel" that President Bush is actually an evil twin of Steve Jobs - capable not only of distorting reality - but the very fabric of space and time. If they were to physically come in contact with each other the universe as we know it, would end.
There. Slashdot Pulitzer Prize baby!
How is this any different from any other closed proprietary system?
Im not saying im against it, im all for it. But if they do this, shouldnt they
also say MS must allow office for example to run on any OS?
We have seen that living things are too improbable and too beautifully "designed" to have come into existence by chance.
- SCPP = French RIAA
- Vanneste = very-right-wing guy saying "DRM are a benefit for humanity!" "we are now in the Bill Gates Galaxy, and this is good!", protesting against pacifist movies, voting laws talking about "positive aspects of colonization"
- Law = french DMCA, inclunding parts written by Vivendi-Universal
- bonus = restrictive parts not imposed by the directive, like "private police" to seek downloaders, and outlawing of "any communication software that can be used to provide copyrighted material and that doesn't include technical protection measures" (the last one being pushed by Vivendi-Universal)
- FUD about Apple, Itunes, etc = fear of exceptions bringing back freedom to a total outlawing of any possible circumvention.
Some context :
1. the French Parliament is currently debating the local transposition of the EUCD directive (European equivalent of the US DMCA, they both stem from the same OMPI treaty)
2. because the government f*-up in a major way by presenting an initial text more hardcore than EUCD required, years after the EUCD passed and just after the Sony DRM debacle opponents had a field day demontrating the utter stupidity of the text
3. since the governement is in the majors pocket, and the majors hate the way Apple wrestled control of the digital music market from them, the only "pro-consumer" measure it can propose is killing "proprietary" formats (meaning : they want Apple to both sell and play in its ipods the same formats as everyone else). This does not mean the formats offered will be open or play under Linux.
4. at this point no one can tell what the final law will look like - it was so unbalanced initialy and needed so many last-minute patching it could end anywhere.
One result could be an ubber-DMCA more dangerous than the DMCA itself
Another could be a "global licence" where internet access is taxed to pay artists, and pretty much all p2P activity is legal. And of course DRMs are not legally protected or even prohibited
Another could be something that looks like the ubber-DMCA but is toothless (formally majors are protected but DRM is restricted and the punitive damages for breaking the law are so low no one will bother collecting them)
The incertitude is driving everyone crazy
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
After all, from what I can imagine, this would in fact render DMCA useless in France.
Despite what you may think, US law is not global in nature. Recent IP law "upgrades" are in effect global because the same companies buy the same laws all over the world.
Everyone agrees that DRM is bad, but I don't think that Apple should be forced to help consumers defeat it. France could simply say that they will not enforce Apples copyright status unless they make alternate formats available.
IMHO, companies should either have copyright status OR use DRM, but not both. I know that there are problems with this idea too, but it is better than what we currently have.
GENERATION 25: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
Music downloaded from Apple's iTunes online music store currently can only be played on iPods. ...and Macs and Windows PCs using any application that uses QuickTime, including iTunes and (I believe) recent versions of RealPlayer.
and on any CD player!
Sorry to burst your bubble.
"You can either have software quality or you can have pointer arithmetic, but you cannot have both at the same time."
Get rid of iTunes BLOATWARE and use Winamp 5.2 and ml_ipod plug-in. Most of what is in ml_ipod has been incorporated into the lasted Winamp version, but the plug-in adds formating and other maintenance features.
Hint: It was Winamp that allowed me to save my stuff after the lastest joke iPod software (1-10-06 release) fuxxored my iPod - like it did to so many.
Now my music belongs to ME.
ITunes - One Billion SUCKERS served.
Let's say that it's illegal to convert/copy DRM protected media in one country but not another, and you happen to live in the country where it's illegal. Is it legal to rent space on a machine in the country where it IS legal and on that machine do the conversion/copying to a non-DRM protected format?
Monitor bandwidth usage on IIS6 in real-time: http://www.waetech.com/services/iisbm/
Again Europe leading the way in weirdo economics and policies! So I'm guessing that everytime some product comes their way and has significant market share that the government with its sense of 'fairness' will step in and through legislation 'level' the playing field for other less than successful products???
Ummm, let me know how that works out for you...
The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving,
The requirement was to implement the EU Directive on IP protection. Now they make it illegal to share on P2P albeit with a small fine. But for the people who distribute pirate content is max fine and jail, like in the US. So no more "French like freedom" bullshit that apeared on /. a while ago. If the French gov. had approved the amendment for legal P2P download for a flat fee, they were risking being fined double the amount that was to be lost in piracy, by the European Court. So this headline should have written "Hopes of legal P2P downloading vanished" instead of some BS about iTunes
I confirm, including the initial draft's article about *turning* illegal DRM-remover softwares.
What most of us are unaware is the enormous complexity of these legal texts.
The original text proposed, more than two years ago, is already half a dozen pages long, with a thick slice of administrative talk around it. Then, with months passing, it got *hundreds* of proposed "amendments", some half a page long, some longer than the text itself.
Those amendments, proposed by a very broad variety of deputies, rank from the best possible ideas to the worst ones, wherever you position yourself.
You will find funny ones, others only intending to correct grammatical points (I swear!), other sympathetic but extremely specific ("to help the visually impaired"... "to help librarians..." each time proposing exceptions).
Of course there are ones that have been pushed by DRM-loving deputies that tend to even harden the proposed law, and others pushed by P2P-lovers (or deputies expecting they'll be elected by younger people next time) that try to soften it.
All in all, it is merely impossible to synthesize the law proposed, because *all* proposed amendments will have to be discussed and decided one after the other during various days and nights (with a varying deputy population...), and the simple presence or elimination of one of them may in fact turn everything upside down. (which is precisely what the initial "P2P legalized" amendment was about to do in december)
I personally tried to download the french text (available on the government site), print it and read it: I must say I stopped halfway --it was more than 100-pages long already last december, ie *before* all the "legal P2P" thing was added...
At least, what one can say is "deputies are now aware of the issue" (when most of them weren't initially in december), and then everything can happen, with the current right-led majority definitely not tender to P2P but on the other hand having to deal with excited students recently disappointed by other laws (relaxing their rights on first employment and lowering the age where they can be ousted out of school), so some expect a possible symbolic move...
Oh yes, and believe it or not, there indeed are a minute percentage of intelligent deputies that do believe format conversion is in the interest of the citizen. Go figure...
Herve S.
I'm flattered that you want me there, but it just isn't going to work. If Canada were to eliminate their version of the DMCA, I'd consider there. England, maybe. Australia, probably. Iraq, possibly. But France? There are just some things I won't do.
It is wrong to force people to consume your product
Then why do I hear major-label music over the PA when I go grocery shopping? Why do my school-age cousins hear major-label music on the school bus?
The proposed law put before the National Assembly will strengthen the legal status of digital rights management (DRM), the process by which copying of films or music can be curtailed, or users prevented from playing material from other parts of the world. [...] Imprisonment and big fines would still be used for those who distributed software aimed at defeating copyright protection [...] the typical penalty for home users is likely to be between 38-150 euros.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Did I need to say it?
Now we can outsource DRM cracking to France.
A new industry is born.
I read
...for eight years so I'm not 100% surprised the French are trying something like this. In fact, I blogged about this quite extensively yesterday.
Who says that you can't use tunes from iTMS on a non-Apply player? I do it all of the time. And you don't even need an iPod
1) Download tune(s) from iTMS
2) Burn an MP3 CD-RW with the songs
3) Load mp3 onto my non-Apple branded mp3 player
4) Listen on my flash-based player
Works perfectly every time. Just wish I could do away with step #2...
Kind-a makes you question the usefulness of a law that forces iTunes to work with other media players when there's an easy workaround. (I was shown this by a non-techie mother of a 2-year old!)
Anonymous Coward for good reason
It is already possible to convert a DRM protected iTunes song to an unprotected audio CD format using the iTunes software available for both Macintosh and Windows computers. Once on the CD, the tracks can be converted to any other format desired, including unprotected mp3. It seems to me that the French law would require Apple to provide a means of converting DRM AAC files to a format that will play on other manufacturer's equipment, which it already does through this feature. Yes, it is very inconvenient to burn the tunes to a CD (but maybe that's a smart thing to do, just in case your hard drive crashes or Apple decides to change the way you can use DRM protected music), and there may be some loss in sound quality associated with the choice of file format. But let's face it, if you're an audiofile you probably aren't buying music from Apple anyway, because the sound quality of DRM AAC files isn't as good as that on a CD from the original music publisher.
People also seem to be overlooking the fact that the iPod will play files in other formats besides AAC. mp3 and WAV among others, so the above strategy could be leveraged by sellers using different DRM specifications to allow their customers to play their music on iPods. And the new French law would still be met.
If, as one poster points out, the wording in the new law requires the tunes to play on all players without converting or disabling DRM, it's a whole new ball game. But the original article didn't say that, now did it?
Personnaly I've lost far too many files to computer glitches to trust an entire music collection to the care of any operating system. I still buy music CDs from the usual outlets, rip them to my format of choice, then put them back in the box and store them in a cool dry place. The artists get paid (their unfairly small royalty) and I get physical proof of copyright law compliance. As encoding technology and disc capacity improve I'll be pulling those CDs back out to re-encode at higher qualities until everything is on the hard drive in a lossless format. I've been able to use that strategy even in the face of DRM on music CDs, possibly breaking the DMCA in the process, but staying well within the limitations of Fair Use defined in United States copyright law. In fact I'm using the same strategies to preserve the vinyl LPs I purchased back in the '70s, yet still enjoy the music they contain. That's the beauty of fair use, something that the record compaines seem to conveniently ignore.
The real tragedy here is that the music companies are ignoring the reasons that motivated us to buy music back when album sleeves measured 12" x 12" and contained more than just a record. The artwork on those albums was often reason enough to buy the LP (anybody remember "Flash"?) not to mention lyrics, photos of the musicians, liner notes about making the album, etc. With rare exception modern CDs don't contain any of that information, yet the price is (after correcting for inflation) the same or more than we paid for that great big beautiful LP package in the '60s and '70s. With duplication and distribution costs reduced to practically zero, there's just no excuse for the current music price structure, especially since all you get is the music, and none of the other goodies. The music industry needs to wake up and start providing fair value for its product. That means not only more bang for the buck, but less buck for the bang, especially for electronically distributed music. And that includes preserving fair use permitted under US copyright law!
In summary, Apple's response to the new French law may be as simple as RTFM, regardless of issues relating to sound quality.
A business that is privately run (IE a store or a school) has a right to play their music, and you have a right not to go there.
Which grocery store doesn't play major label music? And I was referring to public K-12 school, which parents of modest means generally don't have an easy way to opt out of.
But I've never needed an iPod either. About the only time I really need a music player is in the gym - about an hour/hour and a half worth of my day. On the train I'm usually too busy reading the Red Eye (Chicago, here) so I don't care so much about a music player. So I've had this Creative Nomad forever that does everything I need. In the gym I usually tune my Nomad to whatever station (mostly news) the TVs above the cardio machines have on, since it has an FM tuner. If the Nano had an FM tuner I'd probably get it, but to only play songs or podcasts, DRMed or not, it isn't worth it to me. I can always do that at home. I can't possibly be alone in thinking this way, can I?
Well, the grocery store I worked at used to play muzac... that probably wasn't major label.
I don't know about the MUZAK® background music service, but a lot of "easy listening" that I've heard in restaurants and the like is covers of songs published by a music publisher affiliated with one of the major record labels. With the major publishers flooding my ears with their proprietary musical works, it's hard to keep oneself from accidentally copying. In fact, I'd be writing music myself if I weren't so afraid of pulling a George Harrison.
Absolute FUD
I'd love to see us repeal the DMCA. The French seem to be about to do this. Good for 'em. But this means it's legal to hack all copy protection, and to convert mp3 to aac to wma to whatever. So? Why is this "against iTunes"? I'm sure France will be boycotted by our music industry if they go ahead with this, and that will be an interesting fight. This story seems to confound undoing copy protection with converting one format to another. If I want to play my Apple (Ampex) AACs, even if I undo the copy protection, I still need my iPod. Will any of the continuous stream of "iPod killers" actually play my AACs?
Well, I'm back.
... in France we still have "Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité" engraved on each money coin.
It seems that during the night, and in spite of a hot discussion, a total ban on DVD copying has been passed.
This allows legally forbidding one single personal DVD archival.
Also, editing or distributing software that does this will drive you to three years of jail and a fine of 300 000 euros...
The only semipositive measure is, there will be an administrative committee that will refine the details (indeed it *may* allow archival copying in some cases). But an administration can change its mind from day to day, without requiring another law or vote...
BUT!
(Please collect them now)
Herve S.
I may not get modded up because I have no obvious grammatical rule to back me up, but I think that "Le iPod est mort, vive le iPod" sounds better.
And yeah my native tongue is French. I know it's a common mistake for english speakers to say things like "le avion" when they should say "l'avion", but in this specific case I think that "Le iPod" is a better choice.
If you pronounce iPod in English the "i" sounds like a "h aspiré", in French, it's also close to an "h aspiré", but we cannot rename iPod to hiPod in French. With that kind of "h", you cannot make a liaison (link between words). Just like we say "la harpe joue de la musique", we can say "Le iPod joue de la musique". There are already exceptions for short words like some numbers like "onze" . You have to say "Le onze novembre", not "l'onze".
Anyway I guess it's a French Canadian thing, as I'm sure the French from France are more inclined to put a "liaison" when in doubt, because they like to gloat about correctly pronouncing every visible and hidden word "liaisons", comparing themselves to the French that's spoken in their colonies (like here in Quebec).
As for the original poster thinking the iPod was feminine in French. It's interesting to note that in France, video-game consoles are feminine. They say "La NES, la n64, la Playstation". In Canada/Quebec, we decided to use masculine for video-game consoles so we say "Le NES, Le n64, Le PS1", but we do say "La Xbox", since I guess box in French (boîte) is feminine.
Christian Vanneste did not write the law, at least formally; the law was proposed by Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, Minister of culture. What Vanneste did was to represent the Commission of Laws of the National Assembly, write a report, and present a number of amendments. Generally speaking, Vanneste showed to be a strong supporter of DRMs, and paid little attention to the legal risks created for free software.
If France is willing to force companies to open up digital content, why are they starting with music? After all, music consumers' livelihoods don't depend on their ability to play music, and it's not hard to find alternate sources for any piece of music they want to listen to.
They should start with software, and require major companies selling software in France make their products available to run on a variety of platforms? iTunes, Acrobat, any "market leader" like that... would have to be available on Windows, Macintosh, and Linux to sell in France...
I don't understand what the big deal is about this. You can drag a folder full of your own mp3's right into itunes and then put them on your ipod. Why does anyone care what happens in between?
You can even just keep a big nfs share of stuff on another computer and drag the folder shortcut into i-tunes and it will work the same way...