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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;
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
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"
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.
Why do we need a justification? France is a democracy which means that the people are the boss. It is clearly in their interest to be able to format-shift and it is also of interest for the economy as a whole to be able to format shift. So why not do it? There are only positives.
And no, Apple isn't required to do anything. They can take it or leave it. It's their choice to sell stuff in France.
Anyone who generalizes about slashdotters is a typical slashdotter.
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.
;)
Apple is a large corporation, just like any other, they are concerned about their bottom line.
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.
I think you have your analogy backwards. You're saying that taking an iTune, converting it and playing it on another player is better than playing it in an iPod.
We don't want choice of what machines to play music on, we just want one good machine.
Speak for yourself, I want to have a choice as to what hardware I play my music on.
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.
I can see your point, but then, why does Apple have iTunes for Windows?
They are no more expensive than comparably equipped competitive products, its just that they sell for more because they give you more.
If they are "no more expensive than comparbly equipped competitive products", then why did you say they "sell for more"? They have a higher price tag because iPod is the most popular brand name portable MP3 player.
Anyway, you can play them on other machines if you really really want to, though why you would is beyond me.
Thanks for your approval.
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.
Finally something we agree on. It could get realllly interesting.
http://www.hollowdepth.com
Yeah, well, currently Apple have been changing what you can do with the music you have ALREADY PURCHASED. They have been doing this via iTunes software updates. They changed the number of CDs you are "allowed" to burn for each song, and the number of computers you are "allowed" to have each song on.
I think in most countries, that would/should be regarded a very direct violation of consumers' rights. In Australia, you are supposed to get the product you paid for, not something different. By changing how you can "use" each song, Apple have essentially switched the product that people have.
Apple probably justify this by some stupid clause in their Terms & Conditions that states you don't really own the songs at all, or something. I'm sure they also have one of those "we reserve the right to change anything in the terms & conditions without notice" clauses, too.
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/
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?
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!
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...
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? """
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.
It's fairly clear that I have a moral right to keep my work secret. The moment I make it public and people start reading or viewing or using it, however, it becomes part of the heritage of the society, it influences and changes - and, if it is widely consumed, society end up with a much larger investment in it than I had.
Presently, society grants me the privilege of restricting copying - using its guns or the threat of them to punish those that defy my wishes. This is, however, not something I can demand. It is something that society grants.
Eivind.
Doubting the existence of evolution is like doubting the existence of China: It just shows that you're uninformed.