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

France backs down?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

*sighs*

Why didn't the submitter go with the more trollish (and lets face it, the comments will decsend to this level in a few seconds) headline the inquirer took: French committee surrenders on DRM law

Let's all remember that while we would normally blindly follow Apple's lead in this, it is a Free software issue as well as being an Apple (yay) vs France (boo) issue.

Like Microsoft (with word documents, SMB, etc), or Adobe (with encrypted PDFs), Apple should not persecute F/OSS users for attempting to interoperate with their products.

Re:France backs down?

[jkrise]

I don't think it's a Free Software issue at all... even in France. It's Apple's product and technology - they can do whatever they please. If their product became a monopoly.. then, maybe the specs for inter-operation to be dislosed. And unlike MS, Apple hasn't used any illegal means to obtain leading market share.

Re:France backs down?

[GundamFan]

Apple should not persecute F/OSS users

It's not persecution... I don't think Steve has a taskforce specificaly to chase Linux users around with sticks (sorry the over use of that word gets to me).

If you choose to buy from ITMS you know exactly what you are getting, and while the argument that there should be Linux support for Apples products is valid that does not mean that everyone gets to whine about it... iPods play .mp3s and there are plenty of places to buy unencombered .mp3 music files... you may have to make some sacrifices in selection of products but anyone who is without any windows box should be used to that.

I don't mean to be harsh but we are talking about a recreational item here it's not like iTunes music and iPods serve a vital purpose.

Re:France backs down?

[Unski]

Who are you people, and what have you done with the real slashdot?
We are the silent minority. We have abducted the usual sensationalising /. submitters and instated a new order. From now on we will have factual statements as headlines, succeeded by a fair and orderly discussion. This will necessitate a reduction in page views, and we are currently in attempts to re-negotiate the patronage of the OSDL in this respect. We are also engaged in a comprehensive review of /. sigs, and we will be removing any which are factually-incorrect. Furthermore we are seeking to remove the moderation category known as 'funny' and will replace it with 'idiosyncratic'.

Please remain calm, change is sometimes good.

Re:France backs down?

[CastrTroy]

Yes, but you know what you are getting into when you buy iTunes. With MS Word, there's no choice, because of monopoly. If you want to buy movies, then you have to buy DVD. Protected PDF, WMA and Fairplay fall into another category. There are other solutions. You don't like iTunes? Go buy the CD. Buy music from Real, or Napster, or listen to the radio. I don't think Corel released their specs for wordperfect files either. The monopoly status is what changes the rules.

Re:France backs down?

[jocknerd]

But proponents of Apple's DRM will argue that the music CAN be played on other players. You just have to convert it. Its a pain, but Apple does give you that option.

The real problem is that the RIAA, in all their infinite wisdom, is screwing themselves. They demanded DRM, and now its biting them in the ass. Without DRM, Apple wouldn't have the leverage to dictate the pricing on songs.

Re:France backs down?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Yes, but you know what you are getting into when you buy iTunes.

I do, you presumably do, but not everyone does.

With MS Word, there's no choice, because of monopoly.

No choice? What about OO.org? What you mean is no choice if you have existing documents (the same as someone with an ITMS AAC collection who decides to convert to freeBSD)

Oh - and word was not the MS monopoly, Windows was.

If you want to buy movies, then you have to buy DVD.

Or a video. DVDs do not constitute a monopoly.

Protected PDF, WMA and Fairplay fall into another category.

No they don't, because none of your other examples were monopolies either.

There are other solutions. You don't like iTunes? Go buy the CD. Buy music from Real, or Napster, or listen to the radio.

What if you already have an iTunes music collection?

I don't think Corel released their specs for wordperfect files either.

So what? Corel's files are not protected by DRM - that's what we're talking about here ya?

The monopoly status is what changes the rules.

Maybe for you, but for many otherpeople, DRM is a monstrosity, made worse by a monopoly, but still a monstrosity without one.

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:France backs down?

[Thrudheim]

Yes, Apple did reduce the number of times a playlist could be burned from 10 to 7. This would apply to people who update their iTunes software and accept the new licensing terms. You are under no obligation to do this, of course. If the DRM change was so terrible, it wouldn't be worth updating iTunes.

The changes have not been terrible, however. FairPlay has been around for a few years now and this is the worst example you can come up with? The restriction is completely trivial to anyone's "personal use" of the music. Slight changes to a playlist resets the counter on the number of burns. Hell, add a "song" that has two seconds of silence and you've got a new playlist. It is just not worth complaining about. How many copies of a playlist do you need?

Moreover, you conventiently forget to mention that Fairplay was at the same time liberalized to allow a person to play their music purchased from the iTMS on five computers instead of three, something that is helpful for people who want their music at work and on multiple machines at home. It was a trade, in other words, that liberalized a restriction that people *did* face and tightened one that people rarely face. Evil Apple.

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

Re:France backs down?

[nuzak]

> Doesn't anyone remember that the Statue of Liberty was actually a gift from France to the US?

Most of the French-bashers on the right wing are aren't terribly interested in helping out the tired or the poor, and are more interested in turning the rest of us into huddled masses yearning to breathe free. I don't think they give much of a damn about the statue or the ideals it stood for.

The Breakdown & The Irony

[eldavojohn]

A breakdown in profits of the 99 cents per song from MacNN:

"But figures from the US show that Apple, the dominant legal download business in Europe and the US, retains just 4 cents from each 99-cent (55p) track sale while 'mechanical copyright' holders - generally the record labels, who own copyright in the song's recording - take 62 cents or more. Music publishers take the rest - about 8 cents."

I remember reading this article back in December of '05. In it, there is a little blurb of the same nature:

But what price is "fair"? Apple says it is 99 cents a song. Of this, Apple gets a sliver--4 cents--while the music publishers snag 8 cents and the record companies pocket most of the rest. Even though record companies earn more per track from downloads than CD sales, industry execs have been pushing for more. One option is a tiered pricing model, with the most popular tunes selling for as much as $3. After all, the music honchos reason, people pay up to $3 for cell-phone ring tones, mere snippets of songs.

I found that interesting. Executives that have nothing to do with the end product (probably haven't ever even picked up an instrument) are constantly arguing that they should be charging more and padding their pockets.

Being a bass player, I'm concerned about what's left over for the musician. Very concerned.

Weren't all the commercials and marketing schemes out there to make me feel guilty for the musician when I illegally share music? Perhaps they should have been showing me pictures of an executive in his Lexus ... unable to afford a Lamborghini Diablo becuase I was file sharing ... *runs to his room crying in shame*

Re:The Breakdown & The Irony

[Znork]

"Weren't all the commercials and marketing schemes out there to make me feel guilty"

Copyright or other intellectual 'property' has never been for the artists and creators sake. The creators have merely been the excuse, once owning a printing press and being friendly with the crown was no longer considered reason enough to get a monopoly.

Remember, copyright was created to protect publishers from cheap books, not to ensure payment to creative talent.

Apple continues to rip off the UK

[Anonymous Coward]

apple still get to rip off the uk

99 cents 79 pence

we should be paying 55p a track in the uk.

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%).

Aside from the troll clichés and all...

[Scrameustache]

France has a long history of industrial protectionism. Their entire televesion system was designed to be different from everyone else's to promote their local industry.

So, as much as I dislike DRM, I think theirs was just such a move.

Cool!

[irn_bru]

Can we get Apple to deal with Iran as well...?

Apple=1 vs. Consumers=0

[Anonymous Coward]

I know that it isn't fashionable to not cheer on /. when Apple wins something, but in this case they clearly won against consumer rights, so maybe, just maybe, this time around we shouldn't cheer for Apple.

For a very good overview about the subject and a much better article than the one in the /. blurb, head over to arstechnica:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060501-6715 .html

"The legislation in question originally contained consumer-friendly provisions that would force technology companies to make their DRM schemes interoperable. This would have a potent effect on the dominance of Apple and iTunes, of course, since the Cupertino company has so far proved unwilling to license its Fairplay technology to anyone else. The non-interoperable nature of Fairplay has been crucial to the success of Apple's online music store, which has leveraged the popularity of the iPod to become the biggest seller of digital downloads on the Internet. ...
        * Previously, "information needed for interoperability" covered "technical documentation and programming interfaces needed to obtain a copy in an open standard of the copyrighted work, along with its legal information." Now this has been changed to "technical documentation and programming interfaces needed to obtain a protected copy of a copyrighted work." But a "protected" version of the work can't be played back in a different player, which means interoperability won't be attained with this clause.
        * Previously, the only condition for receiving information needed for interoperability was to meet the cost of logistics of delivering the information. Now, anyone wanting to build a player will have to take a license on "reasonable and non discriminatory conditions, and an appropriate fee." When using information attained under such a license, you will have to "respect the efficiency and integrity of the technical measure."
        * DRM publishers can demand the retraction of publication of the source-code for interoperable, independent software, if it can prove that the source-code is "harmful to the security and the efficiency of the DRM."

So to sum it up...

[GundamFan]

Apple = Closed restrictive standard. France = Forced interoprability. (good for us bad for apple) Music companys = Greedy. Apple = defending there price point. (seen by many as "defending the consumers") Um.. is slashdot trying to blow up fanboys' heads by putting this in one story? If so good.

Re:Add This Defeat to the Military History of Fran

[Lakedemon]

Wow...you seem to have a quite weird/twisted view of european history...

> French Revolution: Won, primarily due to the fact that the opponent was also French.

I actually found this line funny...but....hey, I'm french ! :D

As a lover of ancient times, I will use this opportunity to greet our nice and friendly italian neighbours (that were a little abused in this topic), whose history I really admire (the roman republic/empire, it's 1000 years of history, it's impact on modern society).

I send greetings to some our other friends in europe : the germans (you rock !, it has been a happy ride togther these past 50 years in the EU) and the citizens of the united kingdoms (well, it hasn't really been as happy a ride together in the EU...but...you know what, we love you all the same...you have your good points too ;))

Mmmmh...looks like we lost a lot of war in the past....mmmhh...

Oh well, whatever...sometimes losing is better than winning :D
Though I have great respect for napoleon's genius (among all the things he did, quite a few of 'em were done right),
I'm actually happy that he lost in the end and that the European countries aren't anymore under a french hegemony (can you imagine the whole europe having to eat smelly cheese, eat frogs and snails ? )

Same thing goes for our ex-colonies... As a french, I'm quite happy to see you independant : It's the way it should be (don't tell the corsicans :D and the bretons). I hope you are thriving/'ll thrive in the future and I am/would be delighted if we cooperate/would cooperate in the future.

Re:Add This Defeat to the Military History of Fran

[Frangible]

It's true, the French have been standing up where we've backed down lately. People called them not capitulating in the Iraq war cowardice, but they stood their moral ground and weren't sheep-- the Edward J. Murrows of the world aren't cowards. But as you mention they also stand against some Islamic cultural and religious tradition that we're even afraid to.

And if you've watched Stephen Colbert's recent White House press dinner speech, you'll note the only person in the room who had the balls to do that was a French descendant.

It's all sort of silly, anyway... Germans and French share the same common ancestry. The history of warfare in general is that everyone loses... look at the American wars throughout history. We lost most of them. Korea? Vietnam? Moghidishu? We didn't do jack in WW1 and in WW2 we entered the European theater late and fought against outnumbered Hitler Youth and reserve troops while the great bulk of German troops, especially the most veteran and well equipped divisions, were defeated by Russia.

Anyway, point being, it's fun to laugh at France, but maybe this is more of a story of how corporations exert political control than anything.

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

Trolling? I'll bite .....

[Luscious868]

- Apple spread DRM.

Apple didn't have a choice. You either include DRM or the RIAA won't deal with you. If the RIAA won't deal with you then you don't have an online music store that's going to make any money.

- 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.

Apple didn't change the "rules" about how you use your music. You can go to the store, buy a CD and do whatever the heck you want with it just like you always could. Now if you buy DRM'd music from Apple's online store then there are some rules in place, but they are among the must user friendly out there. You can share your music with other PC's on your home network. Granted there is a limit, but the average consumer doesn't have 5 PC's. If you make some kind of mistake and authorize too many PC's and can't deauthorize one or more of them for whatever reason then you do have the ability to reset your authorizations. You can burn the files to CD as many times as you want. There is a limit to the number of times you can burn a play list that contains DRM's music. I believe that limit is 10, but if you need to burn more than that the solution is pretty easy. Use another program to burn additional copies of the CD. Alternatively you could delete the play list and recreate it. DRM is a fact of life forced on Apple by the RIAA. If you don't like the rules, go buy the CD instead. Apple offers a service. You can get only the tracks you want, almost instantly, at $0.99 cents a track and in exchange for that service you agree to some rules. They don't force you to buy their music.

- Apple sue students for posting rumours about their products on the internet.

Apple didn't sue the students for posting rumors. Apple sued the student for knowingly soliciting and publishing trade secrets and profiting from it. Think Secret does sell advertising on it's website and does turn a profit. California is one of approximately 44 or 45 states that have adopted the Uniform Trade Secrets Act. That statute makes it wrongful to acquire or to publish without authorization information you know or have a reasonable basis to know is a trade secret. I don't agree with their tactics but to say that Apple simply sued a student for posting rumors is a vast oversimplification made for the purposes of furthering your argument.

- Apple try to talk Samba developers into making Samba non-copyleft so that they can take the code and close Apple's branch of it.

A company acting in it's own self interest so it can turn a profit? Blasphemy! I know, let's do away with all private and public companies and let the central government plan everything to do away with this evil notion known as "profits". Oh wait, that's been tried several times and each and every time it's been tried it's failed, innocent people have died and human rights have been trampled on. Not that pure unregulated capitalism is any better, I'll take regulated capitalism with social safety nets in which companies and people are mostly free to ... gasp ... act in their own self interest and try and turn a profit and where consumers are free if they don't like a particular company to .... gasp ... not buy their products.

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.

It is a Free Software Issue.

[pavon]

I am legally prevented from writing, distributing or using Free Software that can play music encoded with Apple's Fairplay DRM. Therefore it is a Free Software issue. It may be one that you don't care about, but it is one. That said, Free Software and DRM Software are inherently incompatible as DRM is an encryption scheme that requires you to both widely distribute the key and keep it secret at the same time. The only way to do this is by obscuring the key in software or hardware. Therefore, the only way to implement DRM as Free Software and follow the letter of the law, is if the keys are in hardware, and there is no way to do so while following the spirit of the law. So the only solution to the Free Software issue is no DRM.

It is also a free market issue - unlike most other media formats and DRM schemes (CSS, HDMI, WMA) which can be licensed by any party under RAND terms, Fairplay is not available for license. This is helping Apple to create a monopoly, by sheltering it from competition due to legal restrictions, rather than basing it's success solely on the merit of the product (which is does have).

Lastly Microsoft didn't get to be a monopoly (in it's OS) through illegal means. Like all other OSes at the time, they lived and died with the system it was written for. The IBM PC had the advantages of people wanting to use the same machine as at work and later of low costs due to commoditization. The other PC's couldn't compete with this, and thus died. Microsoft rose to dominance because the IBM PC rose to dominance. Everything else (even their very real illegal acts) is noise.

Frankly, I have always thought our antitrust laws were pretty stupid. We give companies huge amount of anti-competitive powers through "IP", and practically unrestricted mergers, and then wait until they inevitably become monopolies (or oligopolies) to enforce a bunch of hollow antitrust laws that do little more than waist time in court. Why wait until someone is a monopoly to start caring about promoting a free competitive market?

Lastly, and most importantly, it is a consumers rights issue. If I have legally obtained documents, I will view them as I please - whether the person trying to restrict me from doing so is a monopoly or not is of no consequence.

</rant> (haven't had my cherios this morning :)

Re:It is a Free Software Issue.

[pavon]

You may reverse-engineer Fairplay for purposes of interoperability. It even says so in the DMCA.

That is true, I can definately develop and use software to circumvent a copyright protection mechanism for interoperability reasons. However, the DCMA strictly prohibits me from distributing any such tools that enable circumvention even if I intend them merely for the exempted reasons. The jury is still out on whether that clause will stand, or more accurately in what specific circumstances that clause will hold up in court.

Even if distribution is allowed, the DCMA is not the only law that stands in the way. In particular, there are several patents on Fairplay standard, and without a license, it is not possible to write, distribute, and use this patented technology. There are exceptions that allow you to do some of those three some of the time, but never all three at the same time. For example, patent law does allow for implementation and distribution for educational purposes, but then anyone who used my software for non-educational purposes (even personal use) would run afoul of the law. This is the approach that LAME takes in it's license, which protects the developers but pushes liability onto the users.

I am legally prevented from writing, distributing or using Free Software that can play music encoded with Apple's Fairplay DRM.

To clarify I meant that "I can't do all these three", not "I can't do any of these three". There are three things that make Free Software Free - the freedom to modify, the freedom to distribute, and the freedom to use. If any one of these things are prohibited in a piece of software then it is not Free Software.

Why the bill was diluted, and Apple's DRM benefits

[SuperKendall]

First of all, the bill was probably diluted out of fear for yet another uprising of French youth. After all, if they rose up against a job bill what would happen to the government that screwed with thier music?

Secondly, Apple's use of DRM is helping the anti-DRM crusade. In a bit of DRM judo, Apple has basically hijacked music DRM from the industry that meant to controll it and is using that power to dictate exactly how the online music market is to be run. Eventually studios will wake up and realize that they would be fine selling music without DRM, and indeed it's the only way to break free of Apple's grip over distribution. Then we'll not need DRM anymore as studios just sell FLAC and MP3 online, what we all wanted in the first place. Also at that point you'll be able to use any player you like again and not just iPods (so extra pressure on teh labels to move to a DRM free model will eventually come from Microsoft).

So smile when Apple mentions FairPlay, 'cause they are the ones saving you from the REAL DRM world we might all have been living in without them.

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.

Re:The bigger they are the harder they fall

[Ohreally_factor]

I don't think it's a good idea, but I'm not even sure it's possible.

For the record, I'm an Apple fanatic that pops wood whenever I see a Mac, and my butthole gets wet at every keynote.

What sort of monopoly are we talking about? A monopoly on music distribution? A monopoly on music players? In regards to Music distribution, Apple would need to wrest control of the content from the RIAA cartel. Certainly, Apple has helped destabilize the music cartel's control of music distribution, but those wheels were set into motion long before the iTunes Music Store (iTMS) by the original Napster and later filesharing technologies.

What's really going to kill the RIAA cartel is artists getting out from under their control. Apple has helped here to a degree, but the real empowerment to creators has, continues to, and will come from file sharing. I think that it's almost impossible for any one company to wrest control of the content from the content creators. If Apple is going to maintain it's dominance in paid online music distribution (or even if it's going to survive), it will need to accommodate the artists, not try to control them. If Apple, or anyone else, attempts to become the "new boss, same as the old boss", I have a feeling that many artists will just release their material as mp3s and accept that there will be a certain amount of unauthorized copying. That's if they strike out on their own and leave the RIAA fold.

If Apple is going to continue to thrive, they're going to have to partner with content creators, not own them.

As far as the iPod goes, I hope they will continue to dominate the market, but there is no guarantee and there is little chance that they will ever exercise a long term monopoly in this segment, despite their DRM lock in. The field is changing too fast, technology changes too fast. We haven't yet seen a true iPod killer, but that doesn't mean we won't. There's too much in play, too many nascent technologies, too many devices converging. (My best guess is that when we do see an iPod Killer, it's going to come out of left field, and no one will have seen it coming.)