Apple Defeats RIAA and France In Same Day

gnat writes "The subheading of the CNN article says it all: 'Four largest record companies defeated in behind-the-scenes battle to charge different prices for songs; downloads still 99 cents'. This comes the same day as France backed down on the posturing over demanding iPod interoperability." From the France article: "Apple, which did not return repeated phone calls, and other DRM holders doing business in France, are likely elated. While the law must still be voted on, the alterations in the legislation signify willingness by some in the French government to honor the rights of companies that don't wish to share their technology with competitors. Senate debate on the bill begins Thursday."

Comments

Re:Apple continues to rip off the UK

[oudzeeman]

I pay a state sales tax on the 99 cent track (it still only comes out to something around $1.04), but your VAT that is included in your price, is more than 5%).

Re:France backs down?

[tdemark]

- Apple change the "rules" about how users can use their music (number of CDs a song can be burnt onto was reduced) using the DRM and software updates, even when the songs have ALREADY been purchased by the users.

Why let facts get in the way of a good rant?

Apple has absolutely no restrictions on the number of times a song can be burned. What they restrict is the number of times a playlist which contains "protected" songs can be burned.

Can you honestly give a valid personal use reason why you would need to burn the same playlist of somebody else's music more than 10 times?

- Tony

Re:France backs down?

[gnugrep]

No that is wrong. Apple versions the fairplay, so if you bought the song before the change in rules, the old rules applies to this song. The new rules only apply to songs bought after the change.

Re:Add This Defeat to the Military History of Fran

[TortiusMaximus]

Funny stuff. But you should give credit where credit is due, ya cheese eating plagiarist. http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html

Close, but not quite...

[Garwulf]

Um, not quite, but close.

The earliest copyright-type of protection I know of is the Stationer's Log, which was used in England in Shakespeare's day, and it existed to protect publishers against other publishers. A publisher would buy a manuscript from a writer, and then register it in the Log, so that another publisher couldn't then publish their own version of it. The author had pretty much no rights whatsoever, but there was protections for the author in other ways. This was a time where most authors, poets, etc. were supported by wealthy patrons.

Around the time of the American Revolution there seems to be a change in the way copyright-style protections are being considered - the focus moves to the artist or creator, rather than the publisher. If you look at the American Constitution, there's a section that has the original version of this in the United States (I'm not sure how it manifests itself in Britain and Europe), and it's a limited span. This is very progressive for its day, as there's still patronage going on. The important thing in my mind is the recognition of the creator's rights to their work, something taken for granted in other industries.

Now, as time goes on and patronage disappears, the copyright span becomes longer, and this is logical, if you think about it. Without patronage, all that is left to support the artist is the artist's work. Controversy over copyright span after death aside, if you look at the Berne Convention just as a document outlining creator's rights, it really is quite logical and adaptive, and suitable to the here and now.

(Please note, I'm not talking about the DMCA here. The Berne Convention is quite old and fine-tuned, and it shows. It's a very elegant and logical document. The DMCA is brand new, trying to deal with new technologies that the legislators are still coming to grips with, and it shows too. Given time, I think it may develop into a very good piece of legislation that fits the technology, but it's not there yet by a long way.)

In my mind, the big problem right now isn't the creator's rights, but how they have been co-opted. It's not so big an issue in print publication, but look at who actually owns the rights to music and film. The film studios and record labels have basically co-opted the creator's rights by getting the artists to sign their rights away, and then exploiting those rights, cutting out the creators in the process. In many ways, it's a situation where what should be a just and fair system has been co-opted and abused beyond belief.

Re:France backs down?

[pdxmac]

Dude, that's a seriously long post. I read "I haven't used iTunes, but", and then there was a lot of text that couldn't possibly be meaningful.

I have burnt and re-encoded, and I can't tell the difference between my re-encoded MP3s and the original AAC. YMMV, of course. But to say "unacceptable" is definitely not true for me.

But, it is a PITA.

Re:France backs down?

[jcr]

Almost no one reads those 50 page EULAs, so there is no "mutual consideration" in that case, either!

I see that you don't have a clue what mutual consideration is.

Mutual consideration means that each party to a contract derives a benefit from the agreement. Without mutual consideration, there is no contract. When you buy a software license, your benefit is the use of the software, the seller's benefit is the payment you make for that license. Get the picture?

Simply proclaiming "if you read this you owe me money" is not a contract.

-jcr

False

[aepervius]

wiki secam
Why SÉCAM in France?
Some have argued that the primary motivation for the development of SÉCAM in France was to protect French television equipment manufacturers. However, incompatibility had started with the earlier decision to uniquely adopt positive video modulation for French broadcast signals. In addition, SÉCAM development predates PAL. NTSC was considered undesirable in Europe because of its tint problem requiring an additional control, which SÉCAM and PAL solved.

Nonetheless, SÉCAM was partly developed for reasons of national pride. Henri de France's personal charisma and ambition may have been a contributing factor. PAL was developed by Telefunken, a German company, and in the post-war De Gaulle era there would have been much political resistance to dropping a French-developed system and adopting a German-developed one instead.



In other word, yes it was a questionof national pride, but no not against the US, more against the "north-east" neighbourgh which only 7 years before they had a war with... Not much to do with protectionism IMO. Would you , as an US ressident , have accepted the PAL standard ? Well apparently NO, sicne you use NTSC.