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French Parliament Fights iPod and iTunes
f00lforb00l writes "According to an article in New York Times, the French parliament is considering legislation which would require that the iPod also be able to use music from services other than the iTunes Store." From the article: "The outcome of the debate, which began as an update to French copyright law, is far from clear. But taken to one logical conclusion, amendments to the copyright bill could lead Apple, the market leader, to leave the French music business, said Jonathan Arber, a research analyst in London at the technology consultancy Ovum. 'My gut feeling is that Apple will simply pull out of France if these amendments get through,' Mr. Arber said. 'Weighed against breaking their business model for all markets, it doesn't make sense for Apple to continue operating with the iPod and iTunes in France.'" Update: 03/17 15:46 GMT by Z : A previous story covering this topic may also be of interest to you. Sorry, folks.
Messieurs, je ne vous félicite pas!
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Pulling out of the French market could cost Apple two, maybe two and a half percent of their iTMS revenues.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
That was quick.
Ever heard of a format called MP3??
... ask yourself: what would my opinion be if the article was about, say, Microsoft?
and then the French will just have to build their own iPod and iTunes, with Black Jack and Hoockers. In fact forget the Black Jack.
You can't handle the truth.
I'm not sure what to think. Please help me out with a little groupthink. Do I hate Apple here because of anti-competitive business practices with their non-open hardware, or do I hate the French because they are enemies of Apple? Or do I love the French because they hate George Bush?
It should be noted here that Apple have allready pulled the ipod from france due to decibel limits.
However, Apple almost immediately surrendered, limiting the decibels with a firmware update so they could get the French market back again.
My pics.
... to access other formats, but not forced to. Anyway, this is one interpretation of a law still to be discussed by the senators, and even right now, the text isn't that clear.
...they screw themselves.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
Any music store that sells in DRM-free mp3 format is completely compatible with the iPod.
What you mean that the stores won't sell in anything other than locked microsoft formats? How is that Apple's fault?
James P. Barrett
the ipod can use all kinds of music from all kinds of places other than the itunes music store. it just can't play other store's DRM. talk to the other stores and have them release their music as non-DRM mp3 or AAC and the ipod will play it just fine.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Does anyone understand exactly what the French Parliament is trying to do here? Are they trying to force Apple to license WMA from Microsoft so that iPods can play that stuff too? Are they trying to force Apple to release an open API for transferring files (in whatever format) on to the iPod? Are they trying to force Apple to let other people sell AAC/FairPlay media for the iPod?
I have no idea whether or not this is potentially good or bad since I have no clue what it's trying to do -- or what it would actually do.
Mr Halliday isn't French, he's Belgian. Besides that, he moved to Belgium just a few weeks ago to dotch french tax laws.
Besides that, you don't have a clue about European laws. In Europe it is illegal to pick a few items, tie them together in an artificial wrap and sell then an a single entity. And basically, that's what Apple is doing: it couples it iPod too close to one of it's own businesses. And that's _illegal_ in Europe (the dutch word is "koppelverkoop", dunno the proper word in English, sorry).
Why did you try to make this into a political issue ?
Isn't the issue more that other providers require their own brand of DRM via WMV? The providers could solve this, but are unwilling to offer mere unrestricted mp3's. Remember, the iPod came out long before iTunes and people still used and loved it.
Apple's shooting themselves in the foot by promoting DRMed products. They could just get rid of DRM and make everybody happy.
I know I wouldn't vote for anyone who drove iPods out of my country.
Not that we can talk after all the steroids in baseball discussions.
I am using my iPod without using the iTunes services.
Right?
...all cock-blockery aside...
All songs bought in the ITMS can be burned to a normal music CD, thats not the case with the other music stores. Its not Apple that has to be afraid, its all the rest.
So France is against proprietary technology? I personally hate the iPod, iTunes, and ITMS, but I don't think they should be banished outright. People have a choose what to purchase and if they like being locked into an overpriced, overhyped, fragile product with expensive proprietary replacement parts then they have every right.
...and flagging the dupe. Here's a dupe of my previous comment, listing some of the competing music stores that are currently 100% iPod compatible. This is a non-issue, unless somehow this law would force Microsoft into licensing PlaysForSure to Apple (for iPod, and I would assume, MacOS).
In Europe it is illegal to pick a few items, tie them together in an artificial wrap and sell then an a single entity.
In a word, horseshit. There is nothing in EU law that makes such bundling illegal, unless you are also a monopoly. The fact that non-iPod players and music services exist proves that Apple are not a monopoly. They're not even a de-facto monopoly; not by a long shot.
This is political; the French don't like the fact that they can not impose their "cultural preservation" laws on iTunes and iPod owners; no doubt they feel that not enough "French" music is being sold by Apple, and if there is one thing the French can't stand it's the thought that people may not be quite French enough.
You'd think they'd have more important things to worry about right now. Like violent student riots. Again.
Apple's IPods already play music from services other than their ITune's store
any other player that doesn't play AAC's, DRM'd or not.
Actually this bill looks like it intended to water down DRM and lessen piracy laws. The evils of DRM and overzelous anti-piracy laws are weekly topics on Slahdot. It looks like the French are actually doing something about it instead of complaing on an Internet site. It unfortunately looks like Apple has been singled out as they are a market leader. I say unfortunate because Apples DRM is relatively light compared to WMA. Although the bill does look a little vague as described by the article. However, something may have been lost in translation.
Move your French hating along Ian. By the way that name sounds pretty English.... Still haven't gotten over the French occupation of England have we?
One French iPod. Never played. Dropped once.
You are attempting to read sigs. Cancel or Allow?
Anti-competative law is designed to allow a government to intervene in a realworld market to make it behave more like a free-market.
In this case the government in question may not know what it's doing - but this has nothing to do with "interfering with a free-market".
James P. Barrett
note that this is valid for any type of DRM, be it from apple, MS, Real, or anyone else
Never thought I'd sat this, but it looks like the French may get it right.
I am Homer of Borg. Resistance is Fut.. Mmmmmmmm, Donuts!
Good. Apple have been getting passes from the technical community on a few things. They've earned them. But they have no competition as targets for this kind of legislation, and someone had to fire the first shot. Good for the French.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
So let me get this straight. They want to dissallow breaking DRM via DMCA like measures, but force companies to open up their DRM for anyone to use. It seems like some sort of bad compromise is being attemped between having DMCA like measures and making sure there is healthy competition.
The real question is why have DMCA like measures in the first place? They don't stop content from being pirated anyhow, and just assist the industry in nickel and diming us.
This sounds like a government solution to a government created problem, as Apple hasn't done anything to my knowledge to abuse their position. If the government is protecting DRM from being reverse engineered, they are the ones screwing up fair use and turning the market lopsided, and Apple is perfectly within their rights under the law.
While we're at it, how about a law forcing Sony to make the PS3 play HD-DVD discs? And VHS tapes, too.
Don't blame me; I'm never given mod points.
That said, this current issue is not an issue with Apple. The iPods only major restriction that if the file contain DRM, then the only DRM that will work is Apple's. The other major restriction, unfortunately, is the OGG files must be converted to supported format, but I doubt France is taking umbrage with this.
So the real problem is DRM, and the people responsible for the DRM are the record labels. They have pushed this solution, and they have help create these near monopolies. Ultimately it is up to them to relinquish some control. The consensus outline of the solution appear to be well known. A royalty tax on a variety of products and services. The royalties will be paid based on tracking data, just like radio. It will be harder, but with good watermarks and random sampling of the P2P networks, it would work. The source will still be CDs and online, with CDs often the better choice in terms of value.
Apple could play a role in this, but building such tracking into itunes. The labels could be more happy if Apple tacked another dime on the price and submitted to the central royalty bank. The only downside is that this might open the market up to independents.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
For those who didn't RTFA, this doesn't just affect the iPod and iTunes. This applies to all devices capable of playing content available from online sources, including Sony's Walkman mp3 players.
This is typical government sticking it's nose somewhere it doesn't belong. If Apple wants to lock their iTMS content to iPods, let them do it. If a consumer wants to crack Fairplay, using tools that would appear to be legal in France, once this legislation passes, let them do it. Or, at least, mp3 player companies should have to create, and provide, tools to convert files to a compatible format. Again, this only applies to France, such tools would be illegal in other countries.
1) Interoperability must be assured by the providers and reverse-engineering toward this goal is authorized. (Article 7.)
2) A publisher/editor can force an artist to accept that his/her creation will be published with DRMs. ("vivendi" amendment, actually, four different amendments)
As you see, we have fucked up politicians here too. I would say we have slightly less corruption from the lobbies but far more incompetence.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
I'm a mathematician defining a mathematical term that gets frequently misused by people with an idealogical axe to grind :)
I may be flamebait - but everything I've said is true ... not even matters of opinion actual objective statements of what a word means.
James P. Barrett
I love you.
I have over 5000 tracks on my iPod, and haven't used the the iTunes Music Store once. So exactly what is this legistlation trying to accomplish?
/. teaser has already ensured I won't read it.
Perhaps TFA has some interesting and accurate information, but the wildley inaccurate
The French never occupied England. The Normans did, and went on fighting with the French for centuries, they were eventually kicked out of France completely, but it took a LONG time for the French to do it. Thus the Normans became English, quite ironic.
Just don't make it illegal to modify the iPod (or any other device) to allow it to play "other" media. End of story.
:)
Governments seem to half-get things all the time
"Forcing people to act a certain way is bad.. "
"Agreed"
"So we should force different people to act a different way!"
Given a thousand cheese-eating surrender monkeys at a thousand typewriters.. eventually they'll come up with a sensible legal system? I suppose somebody thought it was a worthy experiment.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
The music industry is fighting this hard. Apparently the debate is still ongoing. From eucd.info:
"This morning, M. Richard Cazenave (UMP), demanded a second deliberation of article 7...This section defines technical protection measures, obligations for interoperability, and under what conditions it is permissible to bypass such technical measures."
I really hate just about all this supposed consumer-protection regulation. Make a product. If it does what I want, and it's a reasonable price, I'll buy it. If it employs, say, a DRM scheme that's incompatible with how I choose to use it, I won't. If I'm the only one who wants what I want, so no one makes it, well, that's the free market and I'll have to suck it up.
I have no problem with device and media companies using DRM, ethically speaking. It makes their products less attractive to me personally, but they're betting that people like me are in the minority there. So be it. The only real problem with DRM is when laws like the DMCA in the USA prohibit you from circumventing it, because telling you what benign things you can do with a product you already own (short of redistribution) is just draconian.
Still haven't gotten over the French occupation of England have we?
Nah! I think it's the hammering they took last sunday in Rugby. France 31 - 6 England
try to solve a problem. The symptom of the problem is that Apple only supports one DRM scheme. This is not anti-competative, it's forced on them by the vendors who sell through their store. The problem is DRM, which is by its very nature anticompetative Any laws passed to control DRM will seem hypocritical in different cases. If you pass a law that says you can't have DRM and must use standard formats (which Apple does), then the playing field opens up with fair competition and you don't have the hypocrisy and market problems that arise by trying to pass ad-hoc legislation for each case of a vendor with a popular DRM scheme. I personally won't buy DRM'd music. There are plenty of cheap and fast way to get music legally without DRM restrictions.
I don't understand the bashing, this law has a lot of criticable flaws but its only force is that it forces DRMs (all DRMs, Apple is not specifically targeted) to be interoperable, what part of it don't you like ?
It could have been a DMCA a la Francaise, we mobilized to prevent it. We don't want to screw Apple but we don't want them to screw anyone "cracking" their DRMs
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
Folks, get all the facts :
This law might just force the makers of mp3 players such as Apple to open their device to music PURCHASED on another store than the one that manufactures the MP3 player, but :
- it enforces the monitoring of all traffic on the internet (so that the "pirates" are fined 38 Euros per illegally downloaded song),
- it declares illegal to use, advertise, write or distribute any program that could be used to share music illegally or that could be used to transfer DRM protected data from one medium to another (you can't make MP3s of a purchased CD to put it on your MP3 player).
Since it is forbidden to access the source code of the DRM, you won't be allowed to read DVDs on a Linux Box, or any other DRM protected stuff, because DRM == proprietary software. this is the most restrictive interpretation of the European Directive anywhere in Europe !!
more info on http://eucd.info/
"Anti-competative law is designed to allow a government to intervene in a realworld market to make it behave more like a free-market."
Very good point. I've always said that a free market is a regulated market.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
For the life of me I couldn't understand why the summary was saying that the French wanted to force Apple to make the Ipod WMA compatible.
Now about forcing Apple to license its DRM. Right or wrong aside I'm very much for that. Other companies have indicted that they are indeed interested in licesing Apple's DRM but Apple doesn't want to do that. If Itunes becomes the defacto distribution site for online TV and movies, which is actually very close to happening, then Apple should be forced to let other hardware makers participate. Again I could care less if this is "right", I just want consumers to benefit for once.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
If France has a problem, it's a good chanc Europe will have a problem. While Europe probably doesn't make up quite as large a part of their Market as North America does, it's still significant. I for one am tired of Apple's tomfuckery. But I thought you could convert Mp3s to itunes? Apple can't technically call their devices Mp3 players, either.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
Well...I'm french, so take what I have to say with a grain of salt.
:D
My opinion is that pulling out of the france market :
1) is a serious blow : 2% of a market where you are the world leader must represent an awfull lot of money. The kind of money that would make sales/marketing people salivate.
2) Surrendering a country means, letting the competition gain a foothold/strong position where you (ipod/itunes) had a near-monopoly.
Do you think, you could re-enter the market at a later point ?
3) Brand recognition. If you stop selling ipod/itunes songs in france, will the french still think of Apple as cool ? Mmmh, maybee, maybee not...
4) You'll have to open the ipod anyway....a few people (I did) are buying alternative mp3 player because thay want to play open formats, have more interoperability...People won't like the fact that the music they bought can't be played on other places than their ipod (they just don't realize it yet).
Despite looks, a product that can't do half what the concurence does, can't be that cool...
5) would be funny to see what the EU would do about it (Yet, I'm still waiting to see what the EU does to microsoft...I fancy seeing microsoft have to pay a million $ a day till it behaves, it would be fun and a good lesson for others (rich people/corporations shouldn't be above rules)).
And I strongly feel too that :
Though they had a good start and people everywhere loves their product, I highly doubt that Apple will remain the uncontested leader in selling mp3 players/mp3 songs. Other big players/corporations (sony, microsoft, the music industry...) are interested in a (big) share of the juicy market and, one way of the other, they'll get what they want.
When the hipe around the ipod dies, what next ?
There is always a next big thing, you know
Just my 0.02 euros
Let me introduce you to the God-damn Napoleonic Wars, in which France conquered Europe, more or less.
You may also be interested in the Hundred Years' War.
The French were long a warlike and vicious nation. They were very, very good at fighting. Germany steamrolled them *once* to such an extent that there was no point fighting... Germany is right there next to France. It's not like the U.S., bravely entering the war from eight thousand miles away, two years late.
I don't even like the French much, and I'm mostly in favour of peace, but the surrender joke is just ignorant.
Apple has a monopoly? On what? Did somebody patent "an online store, which sells things" now?
Apple has lots of marketshare, a marketing department that makes catchy "silhouette"[who knew it was spelled like that? Google knew.. I didn't] ads, and UI-experts as opposed to engineers designing their products.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
http://allofmp3.com/
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Is the French Parliment going to require that Sony open up their consoles so they play XBox games too? Sure, this is a gross oversimplification of a comparison here, but c'mon. I think the fact Apple was able to gain this much market share WITH their format is something to commended. Remember when the iPod first came out and how many people bitched about that? Sheesh...
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
So I guess the latest iPod killer is... the French?
So when do they force Windows Media Player and that DRM to be available for the Mac? Or Linux for that matter.
What the French law says is that the users have a right to circumvent DRM in order to move the music to different devices. This can already be done with iTunes... Just burn a CD. The real problem is for subscription services, how will they satisfy the law?
Getting the rest of the europiean union to follow along with the french law. I dont think Apple will be able to just "leave" then.
I trust Microsoft as far as I could comfortably spit a dead rat
"Free" is jargon in this context, every bit as misleading to the unwary as it is in the GPL. If I understand it properly, barriers to entry quite simply constitute corruption of a "free", as economists use the word, market. So regulations and anti-trust departments that exist to flatten those barriers are, paradoxically as it seems, not only designed but needed to ensure a free market.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
Very good point. I've always said that a free market is a regulated market.
In related news, a free person is one whose every action is regulated by the government (slavery is freedom).
From wikipedia:
"a free market is an idealised economic model wherein exchanges are "free" of all coercive measures[citation needed], including such government interference as tariffs, taxation, and regulations, except those which allow for private property ownership in land, natural resources, and the broadcast spectrum, as well as intellectual property, corporations, and other legal fictions"
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
There are dozens of mp3 players out there that work just fine. The only reason
to own an iPod is to be 'cool'. If no one in France is buying iPods some other
brand will become the choice of the "buy it to be cool" crowd. So its no great
loss for France.
We could get the French Government to go after redundant topics on slashdot.
a man, a plan, a canal, panama
In this case "free" is as in "free group", "free module" etc ... in higher mathematics. It refers to the simplest possible system that meets the requirements of being such a thing in a mathematical sense.
James P. Barrett
Good point. However, the region of Normandy is in France and part of French history. The average English man would probably consider that as one of the conflicts against the French.
"Get out of heere, you feeelthy americahns!"
I don't know that I follow the purpose of this. The iPod plays generic mp3 and aac files. The player doesn't care where you get these files from.
The iTunes software of course only connects to apples own music store, but that makes sense, being that its a client for their store.
The iPod isn't exactly rocket science, all that is required is that you create an XML file on the disc with the playlists and song names. Anyone can create a nice client for it, just like the nice open source linux clients I use.
Not to mention, you could buy music from other stores and copy it onto your iPod via the iTunes software package (or plenty of other freeware packages).
I have thousands of mp3's on my iPod, and none of them came from iTunes, nor has it ever been connected to iTunes. And I've done it all without breaking any laws or EULA's I think.
So what's the deal here?
Big ones, small ones, some as big as yer 'ead!
Give 'em a twist, a flick o' the wrist...
The problem you face is that free has many meanings. This is not free-as-in-speach as many people seem to think, but rather free-as-in-group. That is - a free market is the simplest possible mathematical object which obeys the required axioms to be called a market.
James P. Barrett
The problem you face is that you do not understand that the term "free market" is actually defined as something, and I will not allow [Orwellian attempts to warp the English language so that a concept such as what the term "free market" currently referrs to will no longer exist] to go unchallenged.
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
So music is provided by a cartel of publishing houses that unethically charge musicians for the right to hand over the copyright to them because they control all the major distribution channels. This cartel also forces any company reselling their music online to implement DRM. Now Microsoft, has been convicted of abusing their monopoly on desktop OS's to force consumers and that cartel to use their own proprietary DRM format and add their own tax on all music sold. Apple, somehow does an end run around MS with a player/software/store that is better than any other on the market and gains a lot of customers. It still has DRM as the cartel requires, but not the MS DRM that they were illegally promoting and which was also a good way for MS to hurt Apple who they compete with indirectly. So given this mess, the government of France finally steps in to do something.
Now I don't know what the solution will be, but from the article it seems like rather than going after the monopolist or the cartel they plan to try to force the one company that has not been breaking the laws to provide concessions to the monopolist and adopt their DRM format (which they have already been convicted of illegally coercing the public to use). Yeah that sounds about right for a government action.
So they're saying that APPLE hardware can't be limited to APPLE software? Hasn't that been what they've doing with their computers for the last twenty years? Isn't it what every video game console ever released has done?
What, me? Never.
Two people have pointed out "AAC" refers to the wrong part of this discussion -- the audio encoding, not the DRM encoding. They're right. I know better now. Thanks.
As always, all IMO. Insert "I think" everywhere grammatically possible.
To make a market behave freely requires regulation just as a nation requires regulation to allow its population to live freely.
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
"You will pay for your lack of vision..." - Emperor Palpatine to Ray Charles
...and gets their ass kicked.
Apple wants to maintain their total control over the iPod and what it can play. It's as simple as that.
100% wrong. The iPod supports MP3, AAC, WAV, and AIFF, in -addition- to Fairplay. Any company would not have to pay a single penny to apple to become "compatible" with the iPod if they offered their music in any single one of those formats.
MORTAR COMBAT!
If that's their worry then this isn't the solution. They need to ask Apple to mark French music on the French music store, have a way to search just for French music, and maybe feature a French artist on the main page.
Bookstores do that in Canada. I like it. It's nice to be able to spot books by Canadian authors easily, especially when I'm tired of reading about New York, Chicago and LA.
I suspect the French are after something else.
>Move your French hating along Ian. By the way that name sounds pretty English.... Still >haven't gotten over the French occupation of England have we?
;-)
/.
Actually, Ian is a Scottish name. Sounds Scottish too.
But yes, the French invaded, conquered and colonised england in 1066. Not the whole island of britain, just the english bit. Just like the italians did in Roman times. Never let them forget
Mod me off topic, I dont care, there isnt enough englishman baiting on
Let's call a spade a spade: in fact, the iPod and iTunes do support music from any sources besides the iTMS. However, iTunes and iPods do not support any DRM outside of iTMS. Therefore, it isn't breaking Apple's iTMS lock on the iPod. It's an attempt to force Apple to adopt other DRM schemes/contracts.
--- Nothing clever here: move along now...
No, the English don't like the French, it seems. At least, 72% don't.
9 4.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/43537
The simplest possible mathematical object that obeys the axioms of a market.
Just as a free group is the simplest possible mathematical object that obeys the axioms of a group.
When you use it to mean something else it is you who are attempting to twist its meaning, not I.
James P. Barrett
And bottles of French wine should be made to contain real wine rather than that strange liquid that they export to the states. Come on now. What gives these people the right to dictate that any product made must be designed to be inferior, like French products?
You won't read the wikipedia article, so I shall provide you with something shorter:a rket i ew=uk t .html
http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=free%20m
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/freemarket?v
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/free+market
http://encarta.msn.com/dictionary_/free%2520marke
"trading without government control: an economic system in which businesses operate without government control in matters such as pricing and wage levels"
Any questions?
Uttering logically derived and empirically supported truths to the disciples of the orthodox establishment.
Yeah another story about France on Slashdot:
America let's repeat together:
1. France is a country of filthy cheese-eating surrender monkeys.
2. Praise the Lord. Jesus we luv ya for ever.
3. Dubya we luv ya for ever. We all know you didn't forget Poland.
4. Democrats are gay and French-looking.
5. United We Stand.
6. Support Our Troops.
Thank you.
I'm a long way from an apple fanboy, but I do own an iPod and think it's the worst MP3 player I've ever owned for a variety of reasons, but this is just outright bullshit.
My iPod is jammed to the max with music that I've bought online, and not one single song is from the iTunes store.
Now if they wanted to say the iTunes store should be required to sell music in formats that non Apple players could use, then that might make a shred of sense, but this is just weird.
Apple doesn't actually force people to buy iPods or use iTunes. If people want to use other products and services, and there are plenty of those, they can go right ahead. French politicians really need to get their pâté de foie gras-eating heads out of their proverbial sit-upons and perhaps also turn their little brains on. Besides, Apple may very well use the free-trade legislation European Union to stop this madness.
Stupid French ... piss me off ;-)
Monopolies are ok just as long as the box they ship them in is pretty! "You are limiting my choice ase a consu.... oooooooh Aqua!"
Somehow I think France has bigger issues, stupid frogs.
If I may borrow from Malcolm X, this is a case of "the chickens coming home to roost". Many MS-haters begged for big government to stick its nose into the tech industry in order to bring down Microsoft. Well, now those very same government forces that were unleashed to bring down Microsoft are going after one of the MS-haters' own pet companies. To quote another saying, "Be careful what you wish for, you might get it."
BTW, Apple could end this by simply licensing its DRM to other digital audio hardware/software players, as the "evil" Microsoft does.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
It seems to me that it would be great for Apple if they were to license FairPlay. While there may be a few people that switch from Windows to Mac's due to some kind of ipod halo effect, the bigger benefit is that ubiquity of the ipod could be used to prevent Windows-only media formats from making Macs less useful.
I don't know if Macs currently support WMA, but even if they do, it'd be nice to control a standard for once.
And how would it hurt Apple to license FairPlay to their competitors? Yes, it might make it easier to try a different player, but the ipod seems to be the player of choice due to its merits, not due to file format lock-in. Apple certainly doesn't charge unreasonable prices for ipods. Mostly they price them so that users won't be (too) mad when they find out it's easier to buy a new one than to fix a broken one.
And while they're at it, why not let 'em play OGG's too?
Posted from my Android phone. Oh, I can change this? There, that's better...
The French are being really French, even for the French.
--
Redundant Humor: See Redundant Humor
You state this as a given, but I disagree. Why should a "nation" (however you happen to define it) require "regulation"? Who chooses the "regulations", and how do these "regulations" allow the population to live freely? For that matter, how are you defining "freely"? You certainly aren't using the definition I would choose. What makes your definition of "free" any better than mine?
Oh, I see. Anyone who disagrees with your deluded pet definition of "free" must be either criminally ignorant or outright malicious. I hope you'll forgive me for failing to take this statement seriously. However, on the off change that you were serious:
All systems generally classified as "free market" systems have two basic rules: (1) all voluntary interactions, and only voluntary interaction, are legitimate ("free association", "no coercion"), and (2) individuals have absolute rights over themselves and their property ("free will", "property rights"). All such systems are all "free", as in "free will" -- lacking coercion -- and "markets", implying a recognition of the individual property rights necessary for a market to function. By definition no free market system can legitimize involuntary regulation, because that would conflict with both of those fundamental rules; it would not longer be free.
Promote a regulated market if you will, but don't expect me to call it "free".
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Just use Rockboxr t/
http://www.rockbox.org/
http://www.rockbox.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/IpodPo
Duh you fail at the first fence. What is this property of which you speak? Without a state to provide a legal definition of property and currency, you have no trade. Your reductionism has left nothing I'm afraid.
--
USA: home of the world's largest terrorist training camp.
In a word, horseshit. There is nothing in EU law that makes such bundling illegal, unless you are also a monopoly. The fact that non-Windows operating systems and software services exist proves that Microsoft are not a monopoly.
Apple pulls out of France (My choice, as a share holder). Or Apple invades France hoping for the typical surrender ;)
WTF!!! Monopoly my ass. Lets see off the top of my head, you can get your mp3's from WallMart, Napster, Yahoo's Store, allofmp3, whatever Future Shop (canada's best buy) uses, and a lot more. You want an mp3 player, lets see Creative, Samsung, Sony, iRiver, and again dozens more. How is this a monopoly? Someone buying an iPod knows that it works with iTunes, someone buying a Samsung player knows that they have to use whatver catchphrase of the day Microsoft comes up with - I belive it's PlaysForSure - but don't quote me on that. The iPods, and any other player lets you play regular old mp3's.
Just because people make a (hopefully informed) choice to use an iPod/iTunes does not make it a monopoly.
If I buy a Toyota I don't expect to walk into a Ford or Honda dealership demanding that they stock replacement parts for my Car. If I buy an Xbox don't expect it to play PS2 games. If I walk into McDonalds I don't expect them to serve me a Whopper.
Apple could license Fairplay. That is the issue to the French. No one at any cost can compete because Apple won't even license the DRM to other Mp3 hardware makers. It is not the iTunes music store being so dominate that is the issue in France but the fact that purchases made by an individual are locked to the iPod.
Yes I know you can rip to a CD and then import as Mp3 to any player, and that is why the French are looking mighty stupid on this issue, but the bottom line in terms of what they are after is: Getting more HARDWARE players to compete not the iTunes software.
I'd rather see Apple pull iTunes out of France than see them give into very dumb political games. Knowing the corruption of the French politican I would say some of Apple's hardware competitors in Asia are behind this.
Alright, let me get this straight. French parliament is considering making it mandatory that iTunes is capable of playing music bought from music services other than the iTunes store. The thing is, iTunes already plays most non-proprietary formats, such as MP3. Other services that use formats unsupported by iTunes (or other competing music players) do so in order to lock their customers to their proprietary player, and hence to make themselves more money. My point is that other music services choose to distribute music in uncommon formats. So how is this Apple's fault, or their responsibility?
Additionally, if this were to go through, Apple would be charged with the task of keeping up with every music format going. Since other music services are distributing music in formats that are incompatible with iTunes/WinAmp/etc. for money-making reasons, then you can be damn sure that they will change their formats quickly if a competing player can play their music.
Also, there are copyright and patent considerations. I'm guessing that many of these proprietary formats have copyrights, patents, and other legal red tape that would keep Apple from ever being able to incorporate them into iTunes.
Incorporating support for audio file formats that are proprietary to another company is not Apple's responsibility. If another company wants "their" music to be played through iTunes, I'm sure that Apple would be more than happy to oblige by supporting their file format -- after all, it would increase the percentage of people who could use iTunes to play all of their music. Alternately, a service that wants their music to play on iTunes can use a common format like mp3. However, if another music service wishes to use their own format to keep their customers using their proprietary player, then it's not Apple's responsibility to change that.
States do not define terms; people do. You hardly need a state to give meaning to the word "property." In a free market, the definition of "property" is logically derived from the rules I listed. The derivation itself is fairly involved and somewhat off-topic, so I chose not to include it in the original comment[1]. Some basic attributes of property are that it must be scarce[2], it must be owned (controlled) by one or more individuals, and that it can be acquired either through voluntary exchange, as a voluntary gift, or by investing labor in previously unowned resources (a.k.a. "homesteading"). These have all been considered aspects of property under common law even in the absence of state regulation, and this is the only definition consistent with the definition of the free market.
Currency is nothing more than a specific kind of property generally agreed upon (by individuals, not governments) as a common medium of indirect exchange. Like property, currency does not depend on the state for its existance, and has existed, and continues to exist, in areas where no state holds jurisduction.[3]
[1] If you're really interested in the derivation, see Man, Economy, and State by economist Murray N. Rothbard.
[2] There would be no conflict over non-scarce resources, and thus no need for ownership.
[3] For a review of the history of indirect exchange, including currency, see chapter 3 of Man, Economy, and State.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
maybe do it as Letterman has done it, hire some flat-toned announcer to do it in a manner totally different from any commercial singer. anybody dowloads from a .fr domain, that's the version they get.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
(Note: contrary to 99% of the people answering here, I read the proposed law, as well as the debates on this text.)
(Warning: What follows is precise fact. If you're waiting for the usual mentally retarded "yaah yaah the French are retarded" banter or the usual jokes about the "cultural exception", please read other messages.)
In 2001, the European Union adopted a directive called EUCD which, following from a 1996 WIPO treaty, required member states to legally protect DRM "technical protection measures". Concretely, the EU asked France to enact appropriate penalties against people circumventing DRMs.
In 2003, a law was drafted. Due to various circumstances, the law only came to Parliament in December 2005. The proposed law made circumventing DRMs, or even helping in circumvent DRMs, a felony punishable by up to 3 years in prison and/or up to a 300,000 EUR fine. The law was publicly justified by the need to protect the rights of the artists.
One major criticism is that the law and some proposed amendments could in essence endanger any "free software" capable of playing music, video or even DRM-encumbered text (PDF, anyone?) because it could be argued that giving the source code of a DRM was a help in circumventing it. Not everybody wishes to risk a maximal sentence of 3 years in prison for free software.
In December, the National Assembly famously adopted an amendment, the first in a series making p2p explicitly legal provided that Internet users paid a flat fee, against the wishes of the Minister of Culture. This started instant mayhem as the Minister tried to herd the Assembly back in his direction.
In March, Parliament began discussing the text again. The directive imposed DRMs in order to safeguard the rights of the artists. Parliament then voted for amendments that said that DRMs were ok and protected, but provided that they were interoperable, in order to allow concurrence in the marketplace of software and hardware players.
What this NYTimes article shows is that this bill was, in reality, not about the rights of the artists. It was about enacting criminal penalties for people who made concurrent products capable of reading the same contents. Now, some of those who pushed for the bill (makers of DRMs) are whining that their attempt backfired.
To be blunter: some companies made DRMs, and requested heavy felony penalties against circumventers. Well, they have now been served obligations of compatibility in exchange for some ability to prosecute circumventers. That's life.
Ah, by the way: in theory at least, French law prohibits "linked sales" to consumers - that is, tying the sale of a product to the sale of some other product, though this has wide exceptions.
Instead of commenting on stuff based on press reports written by clueless journalists and possibly driven by biased comments from the industry, you should probably read the law, the amendments and the debates:
2 06.asp
http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/12/dossiers/031
The law is essentially a patch on the IP code, which you will find there:
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/
Of course, this needs a working knowledge of French.
Some information in English is available here:
http://eucd.info/index.php?English-readers
This is a massively complex topic, with lots of politicking, negociating and backhanded tricks. Sorry, but you cannot possibly make a meaningful comment on the issue unless you have followed it a bit.
To me, most of the comments here sound as clueless as if some French guy had commented that the Democrats had rushed Bush to go to war in Iraq.
In Canada I can't buy iTunes from the American Web site. The American site has Adrian Legg, for example, which I can't get from the Canadian one. Pity.
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
... if it's in MP3 format. They are going after the wrong entity, it's not the iPod, it's the music sites that need to change.
I think when you say "spin" you really mean "bias". Which goes with the usual assumption that when a news source reports something people don't like it's evidence of "bias." And of course, the opposite of "biased" is "fair".
Thanks for the info.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
Free markets, by your definition, also fail to optimize utility.
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Crudely Drawn Games
How so? The optimization of utility is generally considered a result of the free market system, not part of its definition. I see nothing in that definition which is inconsistent with the optimization of utility. Additionally, the definition I gave is essentially the same as the one used by economist Murray N. Rothbard in Man, Economy, and State, and he certainly appears to claim that adherence to those rules tends to result in the maximization of utility.
Like most other economic systems, the free market does depend on the concept that individuals will attempt to maximize their own utility. Utility is defined by the individual's own choices; any action that the individual expects to lead to a net disutility (with respect to the best known alternative) would not be performed, provided that all actions are voluntary rather than coerced. Therefore, the principle of rational self-interest is a correllary, not an independent rule.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
*bzzt*
Grade: F.
Recommendation: Return to Fundamentals of Economics
Reason: Failure to recognize the last 100 years of economic thought; specifically, no acknowledgement of externalities
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Crudely Drawn Games
I'm sure that what you say is true, except that Vivendi's headquarters is within 2 miles of this.
The iPod can play music purchased from other online retailers. eMusic distributes songs as unprotected MP3s, which the iPod can play.
Napster, Rhapsody et al could also distribute their music in a format compatible with iPod. No one is holding a gun to their heads making them use WMA with DRM.
You're right, I don't believe that so-called externalities should be given special consideration. That is a result, not of ignorance of modern economic theory, but rather the fact that the theory of externalities is itself internally inconsistent. To begin with, no additional correction is needed in cases where real, measurable harm results, because such cases are no different than any other violation of property rights; the typical example of pollution comes to mind. Furthermore, in any given situation, either one person is criticized for failing to exert additional effort to help his neighbor, or the latter is criticized for failing to contribute in proportion to the benefit received. You cannot have both. If the former "imbalance" is corrected, then the latter will exist, and visa-versa. Lastly, every single trade creates an external benefit for the rest of society. Do you really intend to compensate both parties involved in every trade throughout the economy? Even if you could do so, the best result that could be hoped for would be the maintainance of the status quo. There could be no net benefit from such a subsidy.
See also: "Collective Goods" and "External Benefits": Two Arguments for Government Activity
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
There's a difference between real damages and measurable damages. For example, we can't tell for sure what "caused" the cancer in a given person. You can't assign blame in an accounting manner: ok, exxon pays $2. Reynolds pays $1.50, etc.
Your point about "criticizing one or the other" doesn't follow. The whole point of an externality is that one person should be getting "criticized" (paying an additional cost). Instead, everyone else is. If you regulate away the externality, you eliminate both the cost to society (via a reduction in consumption of the good to the optimal level) and the undeserved benefit is eliminated directly. In the situation you mention, there is merely a disequillibrium, which is a different, self-correcting, problem.
And there is no need to tip for societal benefits of free trade itself. If no other externalities exist, the gains from trade as experienced by society are exactly equal to the gains from trade as experienced by the participants.
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Crudely Drawn Games
Duly noted. I should have said "provable", not "measurable". The intent was not to require a known monetary value, but rather to require a definite link between the "benefactor" and the "external cost".
As I understand the term, "externalities" consist of both externalized costs and externalized benefits. The former would be exemplified by the pollution case, where the "bad" factory is externalizing the cost of the pollution onto the other residents of that area. The latter is typically represented by the case of a residential area in which all the residents benefit from the work and expense of one member in improving his/her own property. The problem of external benefits is, of course, both commonplace (as it results from every trade) and rather easy to correct through purely private means; the industrious resident need only make the improvements conditional on the financial support of the benefactors. The problem of externalize costs, however, requires additional analysis.
Let us assume, for the moment, that the externality in question does not involve any demonstrable harm, since it would otherwise be a property right violation and not an externality. For some reason (aesthetic, perhaps) some group of individuals would simply prefer that the "undeserving benefactor" be forced to manufacture his product in a different way, at a higher cost. This is meant to increase the utility of the individuals in question; it must also have the effect of reducing the income of the various factors of production (land and labor), thus decreasing the utility of the factors' owners, as well as the utility of the manufacturer's customers, who must make due with a decrease in the supply of the product. The rest of society also experiences a decrease in utility as a result of the reduction in trade. As a result, the net effect of penalizing the manufacturer is that one group of individuals (and not necessarily the larger group) has received a benefit at the expense of a different group. As there was no demonstrable harm from the manufacturer's actions to begin with, and it is impossible to calculate whether the action resulted in a net utility or a net disutility for the individuals involved[1], I fail to see just how such a penalty could possibly be justified.
[1] There is no way to measure the relative utility of one person's preference for a manufactured product relative to another person's preference for whatever aescetic property provoked the complaint. The only way to establish such a relative measurement would be for the originators of the complaint to either purchase the factory from the manufacturer, or enter into a contract with said manufacturer to provide compensation in exchange for a change in the manufacturing process. Either mechanism would eliminate the externality entirely.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
Check out this link: http://consumers.umusic.com/dmd/retailers/index.ht ml
That is Universal Music's web page that discusses digital downloads, and all of the online retailers that provide digital downloads of UMG's artists. Scroll down to the bottom, and UMG lists fnacmusic.com as a French vendor of their music downloads.
Another link: http://www.fnacmusic.com/toolboxmenu/telecharger.a spx
What do you know, fnacmusic.com uses Windows Media Player and the Windows Media DRM for the sale of their music. So tell me, why would the French government attempt to cripple the sales of the online music of one of the largest French corporations (and one of the largest French tax revenue generators)?
The fact of the matter is, the members of the French legislature today voted on something that they don't quite understand. It sounded good. Everyone is pointing it towards opening up the iPod, the ITMS, and Fairplay. Who this really aggrivates, however, is Microsoft. Microsoft, just like Apple, has no desire to open up its DRM schemes to work with Media Players that do not support them. Imagine Windows Media Player DRM for Linux? I don't think so. Politicans can easily get caught up in the hype just like we can.
As we speak, Microsoft is lobbying to have this law modified in some way that will prevent itself from having to modify its own DRM to satisfy the new law, and it will be lobbying through its powerful partner in Vivendi Universal. Universal Music Group wants DRM. In the end, the record companies would like to control the DRM, not the software companies, but their not there yet. Regardless, Universal Music group would have to take a step backwards if Apple and Microsoft had to re-engineer their DRM's or change their policies on licensing. Because the DRM is in the hands of Apple, Microsoft, Real, and Sony, the music companies loose out while this legislation gets bashed to pieces by everyone who has a stake in the music industry.
Maybe the end product of this legislation will be signifigantly modified enough that we can all say its biased against Apple and its products, but at this point, everyone is screwed, and Microsoft, Vivendi Universal, and their partners, have the most to loose, and the French Senate will hear this soon enough.
I don't know if anyone still reads this, but I am ashamed to have been modded up to +5. Apparently I have read misinformed or biased medias : reverse-engineering is NOT protected not even mentionned and interoperability is only to be enforced when it doesn't prevent the DRM to work correctly (read : no open source implementation) I am sincerely sorry for everyone that read my post and found it informative.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.