France Considers Anti-DRM 'iPod Law'

Asklepius M.D. writes "According to the Washington Post, France is contemplating legislation designed to 'to force compatibility between digital songs and the different machines that play them.' Known colloquially as the 'iPod bill', it is opposed by Apple, the Business Software Alliance, and others who refer to it as 'state-sponsored piracy.' Two versions of the bill have already passed France's Senate and National Assembly. From the article: 'Under the proposed law, Apple Computer Inc., Sony Corp., Dell Inc. and other companies could have to reveal trade secrets of their software so that their songs can play on competitors' devices.'"

Comments

How is this anti-DRM?

[artifex2004]

People keep toeing Apple's party line that this is anti-DRM. It's not at all. It's anti-proprietary DRM.
You can have DRM, you just have to tell other industry players how to interoperate with it.

This is like saying the DVD Consortium is anti-DRM, because multiple companies belong.

Re:How is this anti-DRM?

[Kjella]

People keep toeing Apple's party line that this is anti-DRM. It's not at all. It's anti-proprietary DRM.
You can have DRM, you just have to tell other industry players how to interoperate with it.

But if you have DRM with tons of different implementations and universal converters it is almost certain somewhere it'll be broken. You can't simply soft-upgrade like iTunes has done many times over as Hymn etc. broke their protection, because all players, media centers and so on need to upgrade. The "value" of hacking a DRM system is proportional to how much content it protects. Telling them to have one universal DRM system is like telling them to put every egg in a giant basket.

Re:How is this anti-DRM?

[blincoln]

You can have DRM, you just have to tell other industry players how to interoperate with it.

If anyone can make a program that plays DRM-protected files, what's to stop someone from making one that outputs the file in an unencrypted format?

Furthermore, I assume Apple is concerned about losing their de facto monopoly on players that can play DRM'd music from ITMS.

Personally I think France's plan is awesome. Consumer choice is more important than protecting crappy DRM technology.

Or come up with a standard

[MassEnergySpaceTime]

"Under the proposed law, Apple Computer Inc., Sony Corp., Dell Inc. and other companies could have to reveal trade secrets of their software so that their songs can play on competitors' devices." ... reveal trade secrets or come up with an agreed upon standard so that any song can be played anywhere else, similar to how CDs can be played on and brand CD players. In the latter case, there'd be no trade secrets to reveal.

Hmm, how about the unprotected mp3 format? Nah, that's too simple.

Unfortunately

[jchernia]

This may only serve to help the record labels.

Consider that Apple was able to keep the price of singles down to $.99 in the last round of negotiations. If the record labels could have cut off Apple without losing the iPod market (which they couldn't because Fairplay is closed), they would have (and only sold to retailers willing to sell out their customers).

With a large marketshare behind them Apple was able to leverage buying power for its customers and drive down price. Other examples of this include Wal-Mart or CostCo.

DRM is not for piracy, its for anti-competition...

[iSeal]

Fears of revealing trade secrets?

Does this not go against the most fundamental rule of designing good encryption and good security systems? That is to say, expose the inner-workings of the system to public scrutiny? Or are they afraid that this could open up their devices to competitors?

DRM. Is it about protecting music, or is it about preventing competition?

State sponsored copyright infrigment?

[Gadzinka]

There's one thing that I don't understand. How can there be "state-sponsored copyright infrigment" if the copyright itself is state-granted?

I know, that this might be shocking for some people, but copyright isn't a natural law. It is the state (mandated by the people) that sets the terms and conditions of copyright and if some author doesn't like it he can take his toys and go home.

Robert

Stationers perpetual copyright in 1557 CE

[GodWasAnAlien]

The Stationers had a goverment sponsered publishing monopoly starting
in 1557 and lasting 137 years.

Of course this led to suppression and censorship.

So when the United States was founded, publishing monopolies were to be limited if not eleimitated entirely. The compromise was a 14 year copyright once renewable by 14 years by the author. The copyright purpose was explicitly to promote advancement.

Fast forward to now. Corporations have been given the rights of persons. Government granted publishing monopolies (copyrights) have being extened to be 120 years. And the most control and profit from these monopolies goes not to the original authors, but the media companies (the modern Stationers).

DRM attempts to go beyond any government limits, and establish complete control of publishing media.

The market, however, will remain...

[jabbo]

Do you honestly think that someone else won't fill the void?

That's the beauty of a properly functioning free market. DRM, abusive terms of copyright, and poor patent practices all attempt to break the free market. But it has survived in the past, and will continue to in the future.

Apple doesn't want to lose the French market, and they don't want to play fair with their competitors. Too bad. The French government giveth them rights, and taketh them away, as it suits the interests of the French.