Slashdot Mirror
French Lawmakers Approve 'iTunes Law'
An anonymous reader writes "Lawmakers in the French government have passed a controversial iTunes law, which has the stated intention of forcing Apple to allow purchased music to be universally useable." From the article: "In a statement issued after lawmakers hashed out the final compromise text last week, Apple said it hoped the market would be left to decide 'which music players and online music stores are offered to consumers.' The final compromise asserts that companies should share the required technical data with any rival that wants to offer compatible music players and online stores, but it toned down many of the tougher measures backed by lower-house lawmakers early on."
Because the way I'm looking at it, it has the intention of making Apple close ITMS in France...
Nice to see France taking up arms against the Nazis again.
Sorry, I couldn't help myself.
I, for one, welcome our new free-notfree-DRM overlords!
I hear the sound of millions of voices in French screaming in agony as they lose Itunes/Ipods.... Sounds like the French will be buying their music from other EU countries Itune stores....
It's quite cynical from a patent holder to invoke the right for free trade and the idea that in a free market the customer will settle the question which good is better.
He cannot.
Actually, the French decision IS the epitome of free trade: BOTH products, the iPod and iTunes have to succeed as the best platform. You can't have one product "tag along" with the other one. BOTH have to be successful to be the main player.
Now, I wonder if that verdict can be applied to the hassle around Windows and Media Player/IE...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Corporations can always buy legislation - we see that all the time. We need to make life uncomfortable for the companies pushing DRM. One way of doing this is to get the artists to take a stand against art with locks. Sign the Bono petition today http://defectivebydesign.org/petition/bonopetition /
with some other music services, like allofmp3.com If I create some bohunk music store, does apple have to support my new crazy format?
-- these are only opinions and they might not be mine.
This is just like France to try to limit what a business can do. If Apple wants to sell music that only plays on their player, that is okay. If it upsets consumers, they will buy their music from somewhere else. This is how business is supposed to work, right? Next thing you know they will insist that Apple not fire any employees under 26 who have worked there more than a year blah blah blah.
This article presents the DADVSI law as if it would be good for free software. It isn't.
With the law as it is passed, there is a very real risk that anyone in France who distributes software such as libdvdcss could face up to three years in prison.
Don't be distracted by the headlines about Apple. This law could be a major blow to legal playback of DVD and other protected digital media using free software.
Why have the French taken so much interest in iTunes and music downloads to the iPod? Where is the French interest in this? Are iPod's hard to come by in France? And some other players don't have a rich selection of music available from their online music stores?
Perhaps everyone in France should just download Tunebite http://www.tunebite.com/, and convert their protected iTunes downloads to readily playable mp3's. Or is there some sort of tax involved in all of this that the French gov't is after...
Apple will have it's little tantrum, and pull all it's marbles from the game. Now hear the big sucking sound of the vacuum eagerly filled by other music sellers...
It's about time that someone otyher than Microsoft was forced to play nice with their competitors.
I still think it's stupid to force a company to help it's rivals - but at least the EU's trying to be fair about it.
Whoo, signature!
DesireCampbell.com
Aren't there 1,000 ways around Itunes restrictionsa right now???
You mean insult them for possibly having a better mp3 player?
IRiver with outside firmware patch FTW.
If you can't afford an ipod, you probbaly can't afford to buy music online either. The ipod is in the highest bracket of the market, they sell their product to people who can afford the best product and who can afford to buy music. The cheap knock off mp3 players are generally only used by people who pirate all their music, so I don't see the point in opening up the Itunes market to them anyway....
Also, people who don't use ipods generally don't have as much love for music as ipod users. Basically, buying a stripped down no-name mp3 player is doing a disrespect to the music you listen to. I for one am I big U2 fan, so I bought the U2 ipod to listen to U2 and show my love for this talented Irish Group.
Stanley Feinbaum, professional journalist and master debater! God bless the USA!
...doesn't that mean that France will loose and we Yanks will have to come to their rescue?
Then we return to ripping music ourselves from the CDs, what's the problem?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Oh yeah, and the United States' capitalist-like laws have never done that.
Breakfast served all day!
It's about keeping competition running. MS as well as Apple do have a more or less monopoly in the areas the judges stepped in.
Competition does only exist when monopolies don't. And monopolies are amongst the most harmful things that could happen to a free market.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
You just burn the song to a CD and rerip it as an unprotected MP3.
And yes, the CD burning and ripping part is built-in to iTunes already.
And yeah, Apple even tells you to do this to back your music up. So it's not like it is a hidden feature or some secret backdoor around the DRM or anything.
Millions of iPod owners march the streets with banners, singing songs and protesting against this new law.
.. waaait for it)
(wait for it
Let's face it. There's no way in hell that the record labels will allow DRM free vendors to set up shop in France. This is not a victory for DRM hating ogg fans.
Anyone else read "Atlas Shrugged" by Ayn Rand (if so congrats and apologies)?
Anyone want to buy some Miracle Metal (formerly Rearden Steel)? Anyone want to buy some MiracleTunes (formerly iTunes)?
"I have great faith in fools: Self confidence my friends call it." ~Edgar Allan Poe
How sad that a law that is in the best interests of the people in a democracy -- and of society as a whole -- is considered "controversial".
And let the mythical "invisible hand of the free market" take care of consumers? Yeah, right.
Damn right. Proprietary file formats are an abomination unto human civilization!
Sorry. I've had a little too much sugar...
Modern copyright is theft of culture from everyone and it retards the progress of the useful arts and sciences.
You DO remember what the mob did with that queen you mentioned, right?
In case you don't, let me remind you.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
name one law that has? the only laws out there that prevent buisnesses from doing anything are the anti-monopoly laws and those dont say you cant be the only company in town, simply that you can use less than legal buisness practices to become the only in town. There is nothing wrong with being a monopoly if your competitor royally fucked themselves into the ground with bad buisness practices.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Seriously if people dont like iTunes format then dont buy them...there are plenty of options.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Which part of "burn and re-rip from CD" did you fail to understand?
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Have you never heard of tariffs? That is the essence of "gimping the better run foreign competitors" and is law in the US.
do you know squarepusher?
Does this mean that Apple will be forced to license its iPod technology? To French companies? Does it mean that Apple must reveal details of aac and drm that will make it possible for other online stores to offer the same service? For example, could there be a French itunes store not owned by Apple that uses forced-licensed aac drm and sells to iPods?
This law appears at least on the surface to violate basic principles of intellectual property and patent protection. The solution in France is simply to place a tax on media, such as recordable CDs, and so on so that artists can be "compensated". This actually means a large government controlled cash pool that is dribbled out to artists the state decides to support. Of course there is nothing provided for non-French artists that have their IP rights violated in France. If French companies wish to participate in this market, why don't they simply buy stock in Apple?
How sad that a law that is in the best interests of the people in a democracy -- and of society as a whole -- is considered "controversial".
Why is standardizing on one form of DRM in any way helpful to the populace.
The Apple system of becoming the primary music playback device is helpful to the populace because it encourages other people wanting to sell music to use open formats - like eMusic which sells in MP3. It could well be that if there were only one form of DRM (say Microsoft) they would simply licence that and there would be no MP3 stores. If a mix of players were popular but had no shared open standard like MP3 the consumer would be equally screwed.
If Apple wanted to be truly closed and hurt the populace at large then the iPod would play ONLY protected AAC files. That is not the case.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Ha ha, I made a joke about France. Finally, I am a man.
Really, Apple is trying to get its own little monoploy for its player, mayber if they played fair this wouldnt happen to them. I use Creative MP3 players because I can use at least napster or yahoo, maybe even some others. See something going on their, businesses that are smart unlike apple that is greddy and selfish and extremely stupid.
I anxiously await the specifications of the various Windows Media formats as they pertain to downloaded media.
After all; I want to be able to play purchased WMV and WMA files on my iPod, as well as my various Linux devices.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Does Apple have a monopoly in either of these markets in France? If not, this it completely and utterly wrong and amounts to socialism. If you're socialist, good for you, but if you prefer an approach where open competition creates the best products at the lowest prices for customers than this is a horrible move. Apple, who single-handedly ended our reliance on the music industry's easily scratched CDs 19/20 full of crappy songs and their accompanying players, is now being forced to share proprietary data that it uses to synergize two of its business products.
If it truly does have a monopoly in one or both of these markets in France, then I understand where they're coming from. By linking the two markets together they can use their monopoly in one to ensure an unfair advantage in the other. However, I don't know if this is the answer to solving that.
The French have lost a lot of battles, my guess is they'll lose their fight with Apple too.
Haiku for you!
You are missing the point.
I compromise on song quality by burning to cds and ripping back to mp3. Whereas, a cross format rights management solution would help me preserve the sound quality..
Also, iTMS does not have all the songs that I like. In that case, I need to buy songs from other stores and heck, I cannot play them on my iPod. I pay for my music and I should be allowed to play it in any player of my choice.
I can understand that ur an apple fanboy. But, remember that all the slashdot arguments would have been upside down if this was against msn Microsoft rather than an apple.
For that matter, I think many people overlook another "twist" on burning music to CD. Products like Nero allow a virtual disc to be created. So you don't even have to use up any physical CD media to accomplish this type of conversion.
Honestly, I think DRM on digital music is going to prove to be utterly pointless - since computers allow making perfect digital copies of the original work, as long as it can be played on the system at all. It only serves to add an extra "speed bump" in the way of making copies of the songs you download.
Right now, for example, any Windows user can sign up for one of these unlimited music download services like Yahoo Music, Virgin Digital, or Rhapsody, and with a $19 copy of "muvaudio", batch process everything they download into DRM-free MP3s of any bitrate they desire. It uses "virtual audio patch cable" device drivers to make lossless digital copies of the music while it plays in Media Player, even keeping any sounds generated by other applications separate from what's recording, so you can still use the PC while it works.
Apple Mac users can do something pretty similar with "Audio Hijaack Pro" (although maybe not quite as automated and "fancy" with handling queued up playlists of songs).
THAT, my friend, was classic. If you typed that with a straight face, I salute you.
But that's suicide for Apple. They're not going to just give in. Remember how RealNetworks tried to break Apple's DRM? Apple didn't tolerate it then, and they won't tolerate it now.
-mrxak
Onions Will Kill You
The last half of your post contradicts the first half. There is no monopoly if you can use the services you cite.
Last I looked, everyone in the world had tariffs of some kind in place. The US is one of the few countries that willingly calls them what they are though. Likewise they exist simply to prevent states from creating their own, what happened in the 1790's. Lastly its a system that more and more is being preasured out of existance by US lawmakers and the WTO which is seeking to eliminate them.
"Slashdot, where telling the truth is overrated but lying is insightful."
Ok, Steel Tariffs.
t ariff_2002
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_steel_
Basicly it just raised the cost of imported steel, by taxing it, (In your words "prevent buisnesses from" importing steel) to protect the US Steel Industry, and the Rust Belt States.
"Personal ownership is a hallmark of conservative capitalism. And I don't believe I am entitled to anything that I did n
- Comply
- Suspend operations in France and appeal in the meantime (which I don't think will help them).
- Continue and not open up -- Causing the company huge fines and legal issues.
- Stop iTunes store in France
They really don't have many options from what I can see. Hard to tell what Apple will do at this stage however.Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
Off-topic.
Oh wait, this is Slashdot. Random USA bashing is on-topic for any thread!
Damn right. Just like random France-bashing! Or are you new here?
So does this mean they'll be forcing Apple to make OS X run on PCs, too?
IT was supposed to be a JOKE!
...
Not -1 Flaimbait
but rather
+1 Funny
SHEESH. BTW, My Wife is 1/2 French. Pffft
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
I use an iPod because I want to. I choose to use ITMS. Napster doesn't interest me. Importing the CD's that I buy does. ITunes doesn't require you to EVER use the iTMS, it's just required to load songs into your iPod. Closed formats like the iPod/iTunes combination ensure that the end user has a flawless experience with the product. Let's say that Yahoo's implimentation with the iPod made it crash, losing all your data. Wouldn't there be som upset comsumers? You chose to use a Creative product and that's great for you. If Creative chose only to support Napster, now after the fact, I would think that you would be upset. But iPod users go into the podtunes world with the full knowledge. Choice is there, you perhaps are just not happy with yours.
Just read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI
Most news sources just tell rubbish about this law.
This so-called "iTunes law" began as a law meant to criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing as well as any circumvention of DRMs.
The so-called "iTunes" clauses were introduced as amendments, proposed by free software activists who wanted to save the legal possibility of making free software players. Apple was a side casualty.
"...but it toned down many of the tougher measures backed by lower-house lawmakers early on."
So the French surrendered on those measures? *rimshot*
The US doesn't want to eliminate their OWN tariff's, just everyone elses.
Isn't if funny that no one is mentioning that a French company, Archos, manufactures a line of media players, which hasn't been doing so well competing with Apple? I'm sure the French government has absolutely no vested interest in supporting efforts to hurt foreign competitors.
By the taping of my glasses, something geeky this way passes
Yeah? Well music played from an LP on a good turntable is worse than crap compared to the band playing live in my living room! I admit that when Bono and the boys come over they sure do eat a lot of food, and I sure do miss listening to George Harrison, but it's worth it to know that I am apparently the only one here who truly knows how to not disrepect my music!
I think tonight, I'm going to listen to some Clapton. Sorry for cutting this message short, but I've got a few phone calls to make...
illdomyshoppinginfrance
This is a step in the right direction.
I want to make sure that when I buy some HD-DVD movie that it'll play on the PS3 Blu-Ray drive. After all, I bought the rights to play that movie, so it should play on any device I ever get from any manufacturer regardless of the technology the manufacturer chooses to support, right?
and begin to get our facts, fanboys. The orginal law (which doesn't cite Apple and in fact englobes many other MORE crucial things, like CSS implementations for linux) did in fact forbid DRMs. Remember your memes ? DRMs are bad. Evil. Apple's DRM are as bad as Google China censorship.
/. there are none in the French Senate) said that DRMs could be good, that media format could be closed, crypted and DMCA-protected. Hoorah !
Under the pressure of Big Businesses (tm) (and fanboys, but they only do harm on
The funnier is that the law that passed allows Apple to do what it wants with its DRMs, that is the kind of law thay wanted. And that is catastrophic.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
if you burn your iTunes Store DRM tracks onto an Audio CD,
it will no longer be DRM protected, and it can be freely used
and converted for use on any other player -- the issue is not
a matter of can/cant, but of convenience.
2cents
And read the report from EUCD.info: French Parliament approves the worst copyright law in Europe .
Mmm... H320 with Rockbox. I'm listening to mine right now. You are my new favorite AC of the day.
If this signature is witty enough, maybe somebody will like me.
Really, Apple is trying to get its own little monoploy for its player, mayber if they played fair this wouldnt happen to them.
Apple is getting close to a monopoly with their player, but certainly not due to any unfair business practices.
I use Creative MP3 players because I can use at least napster or yahoo, maybe even some others.
There are three choices for mainstream, DRM music downloads. Apple's is bundled with the iPod and if the iPod becomes a monopoly this is illegal. MS's is bundled with their Windows OS monopoly. This is illegal and they have been convicted of it, but the punishment was basically nothing. RealMedia's is rather crappy and their brand is poised by their spyware days.
So you've chosen to go with Microsoft brand DRM, the convicted monopolist abusing their position and unfairly disadvantaging the other two as determined by the EU courts. And you think they have the ethical high ground over Apple? Get a clue.
I am just pondering the technical requirements for an open standard for DRM that allows interoperability and transferability, and I find myself wondering if it just cannot be done. I mean, I suppose you could have secret keys that only those vendors that are licensed are allowed to have, but if any of the keys leak.....
Of course, I have doubts at times that DRM can work....;-)
The technical term for what Apple wants to be able to do is called market leveraging, and it is illegal (except under the Bush administration, which simply does not accept anti-trust laws as being in the interests of their political contributors.) Ever since the Mellon family started spending big money lobbying the judiciary enforcement against market leveraging has been undermined. Since then the EU has started picking up the anti-trust ball that the US dropped. I wish they would start to run with it.:-/
Hans
I dislike Apple a lot lately - ever since switching to Linux, trying to get the music that I've purchased from iTMS has been an obstacle. I've overcome the obstacle, but the fact that it was an obstacle at all is really galling.
But at the same time, I don't really believe that what Apple is doing with it's music store is illegal, nor should it be illegal. I think that it may be a little bit evil, and I kick myself for having bought so much music there, but it was my own fault.
I really hope that a good alternative will surface soon. I don't want to steal music; I want to pay for it, but I want to get quality and I want to be able to do what I want to with it once I've purchased it.
For now, I've gone back to trips to the "record" store
There's nothing lossless about this process. You avoid analog signal degradation, but that's it. The original source is already heavily compressed, and recompressing to mp3 hardly helps.
Last I looked, everyone in the world had tariffs of some kind in place.
Yes DUH! That was exactly the point, the US does it too.
The US is one of the few countries that willingly calls them what they are though.
If they called them national protectionism overhead, then you may have had a point, here it's just a general word common in European languages. Other western countries have similar naming.
Likewise they exist simply to prevent states from creating their own, what happened in the 1790's.
No, then they would just forbid them. They exist because politicians think protectionism works.
Lastly its a system that more and more is being preasured out of existance by US lawmakers and the WTO which is seeking to eliminate them.
Wow? Really? The US has done a lot less then the EU to prevent tariffs, and even the EU is a pretty avid proponent. The US only wants no tariffs with their closest neighbours, because they don't want to fall to far behind the EU.
H340 on stock OS but yeah, having a player that works like an ordinary hard drive when I plug it in any computer and no proprietary programs required to use it is pretty sweet.
I don't think you should hold your breath waiting for the French to come to your rescue from DVD-region hell. I think their only disappointment is that they ended up in the same region as the rest of Europe, and not in their own special one -- the best to preserve their insular, SECAM-watching world against the evil anglophone outsiders.
No, if there's one country that might, someday, have the balls to put their foot down about the ridiculous region coding, it's the United Kingdom. I mean, they really get screwed. Really screwed. In some cases they pay as much for a DVD release right now as we're contemplating (and complaining) paying for HD-DVD and Blu-Ray releases yet to come. Not only do they get punished due to UKP/Euro currency fluctuations, but they get the same raw deal as everyone else in Europe, not being able to watch discs destined for the U.S. or Asian markets. Since they feel the most pain, price-wise, I think it's likely they'll be the first to say 'enough.'
The other option is that at some point in the future, Russia might object to being stuck in the Region 5 ghetto, along with Africa and India, and start making protests towards being let into Region 2. If they ever get into the E.U., this might not be hard to believe -- especially since I bet most Russians who have DVD players have multi-region ones anyway, so the change would mostly be on paper. But once the change is made, it would effectively make Region 2 a de-facto standard for the West (sans America).
Of course, that still leaves Asia, the Americas, and Europe as separate regions; I'm not sure that's an easy nut to crack, because the demand for each others' material is pretty low. Americans, with the exception of anime-watchers, don't care about Asian titles, and few care about European content. Europeans are loath to admit that they want American titles, and in Asia you can just get pirated discs of anything you want.
It's only if the price discrimination caused by DVD regions (which is the reason they exist, after all) becomes significant enough to warrant attention by the global trading bodies, that you'll ever see them broken down completely.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
But that's suicide for Apple.
It is only suicide for Apple if this law does not also effectively break MS's ability to tie Windows Media player and their DRM to Windows. Unfortunately, this likely will not do that. France decided to make illegal the one thing allowing Apple's DRM to stop MS's from taking over the entire market with their monopoly abuse. Brilliant move huh?
France should not back down on this, but take it all the way. Ban all undocumented file formats and enforce interoperability. Then, MS would have to let Apple implement their DRM and Apple would have to let MS do the same. The DRM would quickly become pointless and everyone would win.
So they are decoding a lossy DRM encumbered music file, playing it, and then encoding it into MP3s via this "virtual patch cable"? Lovely. Two layers of encoding artifacts instead of just one.
the good ground has been paved over by suicidal maniacs
The law that was voted today (link is to report where the law itself is in the second half) no longer has the strong interoperability provisions that in particular protected free software-based implementation of interoperability. It would be much more relevant to comment on the infamous Vivendi Universal amendment that is included in the voted text. The corresponding provisions create criminal sanctions (3 years of jail and 300000 euros = 375000 US$) for software writers, distributers and importers for software that is "manifestly destinated" to the unauthorised sharing of copyrighted works. The exclusion of general collaborative work or file exchange software from these sanctions has been deleted in the final text. They also make possible for right holders to ask for judicial injonctions to software publishers and service providers to implement DRMs in software that is "manifestly used" even for at non-commercial scale for sharing works without authorisation. I don't know if Apple will keep screaming about the law, but there is much more to cry about for software freedom, intellectual freedoms and free culture.
How about several economic concepts?
Tarrifs - taxes on foreign products to give domestic products an advantage
Quotas - limiting the amount something is imported to give domestic market a boost
Subsidies - boosting domestic industries at the expense of foreign industries
All forms of economic protectionism serve no other ECONOMIC purpose other than to hurt free trade. They serve plenty of political purposes though...
"how can they call it a MINE if everything here is THEIRS?!?!" -Straight Jacket
People always said iPods and iTunes were like razors and razor blades...
... except Company A and Company A shareholders.
If so, then where are the laws saying my Company A razor blade has to work with my Company B razor. I don't want to have to pay $5 for the Company A razor when I already have one that does pretty much the same thing from Company B. I know there is a solution called "Super Glue" (e.g. burn to CD and rip) but that would require me to buy Super Glue (blank CDs) so in some screwed up world we call Franch, that is unreasonable so what _is_ reasonable is to have Company B make their razor accept Company A blades. There, now everyone is happy
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
Would transcoding an AAC file to another AAC file with the same encoder settings introduce that many more artifacts? I've wondered about that...
'Yes, firefox is indeed greater than women. Can women block pops up for you? No. Can Firefox show you naked women? Yes.'
Assuming that DRM is unavoidable (which is a bad assumtion, but that is beside my point), standardizing on one form of DRM would be good, like standardizing on one form of video tape, of laser disk format, of width of cars, of voltage for household electrical current, and so on.
I would have thought this to be obvious.
Yes it is incredibly obvious and thus my original post. A standardized DRM that everyone uses is more likley to be more widley accepted, and increases marginalization of open formats - thus my comment about eMusic using Microsoft DRM if that were a widley accepted common standard with open and cheap licencing.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
That's what I'm talking about.... no analog signal degradation. The original source being "heavily compressed" is hardly the point, since if you think that's a noticeable problem with the source audio - then you probably have no business being a customer of that music service in the first place.
To my ears, the material I'm getting from iTunes or Yahoo music sounds "near CD quality". Granted, I'm not trying to play it back on multi-thousand dollar speakers or stereos. But I am picky enough a listener to despise most 128-bit MP3 music I've downloaded from p2p sources. (To me, most of it sounds "dull" and "compressed"... FM radio quality at best.)
When I re-encode this material to MP3 minus the DRM, I always select 192-bit, which doesn't seem to lose anything discernable over the DRM source.
That software companies need to start releasing software that is compatable with all operating systems without emulation for France? :o Maybe I missed the point
I think you meant to reply to my detractor, not me - I agree with you, for what it's worth!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Did I hear anyone say "iPod U2 Special Edition"?
B$
The post I was responding to said:
"but to play ITMS songs, I need a f***** iPod says the psp owner"
From the orignal post:
"Note that AFAIK (from summarized English translations) it says nothing of the process being free, easy, or lossless."
So according to the requirements of the new law the PSP owner can indeed use ITMS music, it's just not easy or lossless.
You are not understanding the context of the discussion at hand, which is what the french law requires.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Apple said it hoped the market would be left to decide 'which music players and online music stores are offered to consumers.'"
Pure hogwash. "Let the market decide" is a short form of "Let the free market decide."
We are talking devices protected by patents here for playing music and video protected by copyrights. Both forms of government granted monopolies. Where exactly is the free market in all of this again?
all the best,
drew
(da idea man)
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
"But this iTunes stuff is just crap, there are plenty of other players out there, and plenty of other serivces not to mention you can rip your own CDs and use the music that way."
Yes, but because of the government granted monopolies, (aka copyrights) not every service can offer the same music. And they would have you believe that some countries have no legal access to any online services at all.
all the best,
drew
(da idea man)
FreeMusicPush If you want to see more Free Music made, listen to Free
Just a note, I've used tunebite which employs the same process, and while it does keep sounds generated by other apps separate, it can be a CPU intensive process (especially if you're doing the recording at highspeed), and if you're using the PC while it's recording, it can at times overload the CPU and cause pauses and skips in the recording.
This law is terrible, not because of the iTunes/iPod furphy, but simply because it is the almost exact copy of the DMCA adapted for France.
Under this new law, DeCSS and equivalents are illegal. Simply using a reverse-engineeed DRM module to watch your legally purchased DVDs under Linux, is prohibited and incurs a fine. This clearly promotes forced sales tied to existing big businesses : if you want to watch a DVD on your PC, the only legal option is to buy a Microsoft O/S and associated third-party viewer.
Under this law, tying DRMs to user identification -- even using biometrics and usage tracking, becomes legal, raising serious privacy questions.
Worse, this laws makes a large number of people criminals overnight, for simply exercising their right to private copy for private use. It was voted with only the voices of the current Chirac's party majority (UMP) voting for it. A single UMP député voted against with the rest of the minority. This particular député has been very vocal against the bill. He recently co-wrote an article in the most important right-wing (majority) newspaper im Framce (Le Figaro), earlier this week, why he thought this bill was disastrous. Interestingly, his co-author was socialist ex-prime minister Michel Rocard, who is credited with defeating the pro-patent lobby in Europe last year, as the enlightened rapporteur.
The socialist party minority has vowed to bring the bill before the constitutional council, the last body that can declare the bill contrary to the constitution, and to repel it if they get the majority next elections, due next year. At least some politicians get it, but unfortunately not enough to make a difference today.
A sad day. More details and alarmist news there.
BTW, Apple can rest easy. The DADVSI bill, as it is called, was considerably watered down on this issue by Senate, and represents no threat whatsoever to Apple's business in France.
I suspect you'd be all for GM changing their cars to only work with GM gas, because customers can just choose not to buy their cars because of the bundling. Eventually the free market will stop the bundling, and the people who've already invested in GM cars will eventually get over it.
An interesting point, but i would like to point out that you cannot use a virtual drive and Itunes together- meaning you cannot burn music to a virtual cd. All things considered the virtual audio patch cable is something a lot of people have strived to create (sounds like the perfect solution to getting around DRM).
Apple already makes the DRM format a licensable item, it is available to those who want it. The law does not require them to remove the DRM, it only allows others to get the info required to use the material, which (the DRM format) is already available for a fee.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Uh ... yeah. Why wouldn't it?
what the hell are you talking about?
iPod can play any mp3 regardless of where you get it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Why don't you speak plainly?
"I can understand the things being done to Microsoft because *I hate Microsoft*, but not Apple because I love Apple."
Guess what, you (that is, those of your ilk), begged big government to put its nose into the tech biz so that they could bring down a company you despise. Were you really so naive to think that once government started to go after high-tech companies, that they would stop with Microsoft? That they wouldn't go after one of your own pet companies? To quote Malcom X, "This is a case of the chickens coming home to roost."
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
Well, a lossy compression system basically works by looking for inaudible things to discard, so that it is left with something it can compress well. Given something that ALREADY has those things discarded, it would seem that it should not need to discard any more.
Anyone arguing such a stance don't have a leg to stand on. Apple fanbois are so brainwashed they don't even know when something is actually beneficial to them!
Yes it would it's like saving an JPEG twice with the same compression settings.
You have the orginial image, it throws away some info that it thinks is "irrelevant". Now you have a slightly lower quality image. Next you perform the same action on the lower quality image, so of course since the image you start with is already different from the original, performing the same compression on the lower quality image will result in even lower quality, because the software will throw away yet some further "irrelevant" information.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
There's a big difference. Microsoft openly licenses their DRM technologies to third parties. You can buy tons of devices that can play WMAs, even with DRM. I currently own seven of them, and I didn't even buy them for that intention. It's nearly as ubiquitous as MP3 in media players at this point specifically because Microsoft has permitted others to license the technology.
However, when it comes to Apple, specifically music purchased from iTMS, I have only three options. I can burn them to a CD and rerip them, which is an option albeit an inconvenient one. I can play them on an iPod, which I own but despite being under six months old is no longer functional and cannot hold a charge for more than three minutes. Finally, I can purchase a Motorola ROKR phone, however I already own a Treo which does significantly more.
What I would like to be able to do is to play this music on other players. I'd like to burn the files to a CD and play them in my car. I'd like to stream them to my SqueezeBox. I'm not even permitted to play these files on my new laptop in iTunes unless I'm home and can connect to my home desktop which must be on and also running iTunes.
I'd love to play within the boundaries, but those boundaries restrict me to a very small subset of devices with a very limited functionality. I have no desire to copy this material indiscriminately. I would just like to make use of the music I have purchased without having to beg Apple for the privilege, or to repurchase all of the A/V hardware I already own for hardware blessed with an Apple logo.
Ultimately if this new French law forces Apple into a position where it must make the technical specifications for interoperation with FairPlay available to license then I stand to benefit.
The really annoying this is that if the companies were switched and we were talking about WMA/DRM being purchased from Microsoft Music Store and only playing in Microsoft xPod then we wouldn't even be having this conversation. But for some reason because it involves Apple it can't possibly be bad. Apple, a company obsessive about control, from fabrication to retail, squelching third-party lines and litigating at every turn, is somehow a golden child. It's an important difference, but the only thing Apple lacks from being an extraordinairily abusive monopoly, the likes of which not seen since Standard Oil, is the market share. Apple just might get that market share through iPod, and they will not understand how to work in a world where being a monopoly means playing nice.
Considering that France has recently been rocked by massive protests and riots, I find it curious that the French government is troubling themselves with iPod legislation. Perhaps they already have a law against flag burning.
This is by far the most draconian version of the DMCA i've ever seen, from EUCD.INFO
an abusive extension of copyright (articles 7, 7 bis A, 8, 14 bis): turning the right to make copies for private use and the right to read into exclusive rights, the author being able to authorize or prohibit these acts using systems for access and copy control
a generalized presumption of guilt for the public (articles 13 and 14): prohibition to disable or publishing a means for disabling a technical measure of copy control, including for instance if this technical measure infringes on privacy or prevents a legal use of the work; merely decoding using unapproved software is punished by a fine of up to 3750 EUR, and proposing such software to others is punished by up to 6 months in jail and/or up to a 30,000 EUR fine;
censorship for authors of free software (article 7 bis A): - creation of an administrative authority empowered with the ability to prohibit the publication of free software accessing protected works -- this infringes on the moral right of divulgation of the authors of free software, that is, the right for them to publish their works, thus infringing on creative freedom, a fundamental right - users of free software who would still use such software for accessing protected works would risk the aforementioned fines and/or jail sentences
responsibility for crimes committed by others for Internet users (article 14 ter A), authors and publishers of software, Internet service providers and online services (articles 12 bis, 14 quater), in order to impose filtering systems upon all, even if these infringe on privacy, freedom of communication and freedom of speech; article 14 ter A thus makes it compulsory for Internet service provider to give filtering systems to their users, and compels users to install them;
infringement on free competition (article 7 bis A): by imposing so-called RAND licenses on interoperability information and creating a surrealistic obligation of result in terms of usage control for authors and publishers of software capable of playing works protected by DRMs designed by third parties
private law enforcement (articles 14 ter A, 14 quater): requires private organizations to permanently provide means intended to protect public order, whereas such missions are normally exerced by the State, with the judicial branch capable of exercising checks and balances;
infringement on the neutrality of technique (article 12 bis): pretends that communication software can be "evidently designed" for the exchange of copyrighted data, and punishes by up to 3 years in prison and/or up to a 300,000 EUR fine any person who would design or publish such software, or even incite to the use thereof
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
CDs won't play in Tape players, tapes won't play in record players, and oh-my-god DRM music can't be played on devices that don't read the DRM format.
Don't like DRM? Don't buy it. No one is forcing you to downgrade from CD or Vinyl to digitally compressed files that can be easily destroyed by an accidental press of the delete key on your keyboard.
Seams pretty simple to me.
:^P Need I say More??
Can't wait for the French and other European countries to pass legislation that forces Intel and Apple to let Mac OSX run on any Intel Box.
Note: the French really do not call this the "iTunes law" or the "iPod law". This is a nickname granted by incompetent or dishonest journalists in the US press, who somehow claim that the law was initially meant at targetting iPod/iTunes. It suffices to read the transcripts of the debates and the drafts to see that it wasn't.
see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DADVSI
Part of the reason the quality of iTMS AACs sound "good enough" to you is that they're made from studio masters, not just ripped from CDs that someone at iTMS went out and bought. When you rip something from a CD, you're starting with lower quality source material.
When you rip from a CD, you're also compressing something twice, although the intermediate step (the CD) is higher quality than the AAC intermediate step (the song you bought off of iTMS) you'd get if re-rip an ITMS song.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
The AAC format as such is not proprietary.
P EG-4_Audio_FAQ.html
Try again: http://www.vialicensing.com/products/mpeg4audio/M
And as far as anyone can tell, Apple want DRM, they want closed formats - they are not anything unlike MS in their business practises, just until recently without a virtual monopoly... now we see the truth.
"Apple has built a brand based on user and creator friendliness. They should not be permitted to bathe in the glow of helping creators and user-friendliness while propagating user-hostile technology like DRM."
"Apple has built a brand based on user and creator friendliness. They should not be permitted to bathe in the glow of helping creators and user-friendliness while propagating user-hostile technology like DRM."
Cf subject.
The most common general way (the [i]only[/i] general way to my knowledge) to pull this off losslessly is for the virtual audio patch cable to be a Windows audio driver, i.e. to pretend it's a soundcard. Under pressure of certain large-scale copyright holders, Microsoft seeks to eliminate this possiblity. You may have noticed the whole fuss about signed drivers in Widnows XP: you get scary warnings if you install a driver Microsoft has not approved. The Microsoft guys have a policy not to approve any sort of virtual device driver (as explained by the Nero virtual CD installer); I'll let you figure out why.
While this protection does little more than annoy you with popups today, Microsoft are pushing for "Trusted Computing", which will make it technically possible to prevent any unauthorized drivers from being used; which will essentially disable all virtual audio patch cables once and for all. You'll have to do it with a real analog cable....
Similar technical ideas are the chief argument why the **AAs would never dare to support a free operating system with their audio/video formats, even with binary players. We'll have to decrypt them ourselves.
I seriously doubt that, do you have any proof for ITMS using studio masters? (Or any proof of them sounding any different from the CD masters, either...)
1. Pull out of the french market 2. Create a european Ipod that plays all the format and don't use the itunes store 3. Let all the other stores use the european ipod technology, as apple drm won't be used in europe. 4. Make the Euro Ipod cheaper, 6gb US$250. 5. Create a new marketing campaign where the euro ipod appears in all the music stores. So the people can see the new capabilities, ogg vorbis, wma, atrac, all the format out there Let's see: a) Because all the european users can download songs from all the music stores and put it in the euro ipod, apple will have not just a monopoly, could be a GIGAPOLY, imagine buying songs from microsoft and playing it on the ipod. b) Wait to see how french people kill each others for the new euro ipod that play grandmother format.
Consider starting from a given wave file. You compress it with an MP3 compressor down to a 128 kbit/second MP3, and then run that through an MP3 decoder, to get wave file 2. Wave file 2 differs from wave file 1, because some things were lost to make the MP3.
How difficult would it be to make an MP3 compressor that could take wave file 2 and produce a 128 Kbit/second MP3 that decodes back to wave file 2? Wave file 2 is exactly representable as an MP3 of that bitrate, so it should be possible to make such a compressor.
An awful lot of screed is being disgorged about Apple's DRM, despite the fact that it is effortlessly simple to get around. Even the most basic user can make a playlist and burn a CD, then use it in whatever device or platform they desire.
E 6-426B-9B32-433F4CABC730.html7 A-44C1-9D8A-4AB90106BB4D.html5 A-41DF-8C18-99A08767ABEE.html
People posting about how they bought lots of iTMS songs, then moved to Linux, and now are hopelessly befuddled about their options, are complete liars pushing FUD.
An interesting comparison that nobody seems to be making: what about all the other platforms that make no effort at interoperability with other hardware or software? Why hasn't Scandinavia or France been grandstanding against:
- Sony Playstation games, which don't play on an Xbox, or a GameCube. None can be burned to CD and played elsewhere.
- Microsoft's Windows platform, which "locks" applications written to its APIs to its own OS? No way to burn your Windows apps to a CD and import them into Linux.
- Apple's Mac OS X software (apart from CLI apps) can't be burned to a CD to run on Linux.
- What about Linux' Gnome and KDE apps? Shouldn't everything be a massively fat binary to run anywhere?
( insert 5,000 other obvious and absurd examples here )
Further, rabidly attacking Apple over DRM is like attacking Starbucks over their coffee bean economics. They're the leaders in fair trade/shade grown/sustainable coffee production, so yeah attack them for trying to give a corporate shit about playing fair, then rejoice after putting them out of business, and watch ADM-CoffeeCo replace them selling Frankincoffee grown in the wake of slash and burned rainforest.
Or, in the case of Apple, do a dance on their tombstone, and then you can get rewarded by the WMA alternative, which doesn't support unlimited CD burning, expires tracks when you stop paying for subscription fees, and will soon only run on Paladium PCs.
How ruthlessly absurd.
The Revolution Will be Open Sourced!
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/146AE13C-A0
BSD & GPL: Different Sources for Different Horses
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/3FA34DA6-CD
Apple & Open Source... Strange Buffaloes?
http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/Home/EB25ECDF-0E
"Lawmakers in the French government have passed a controversial iTunes law, which has the stated intention of forcing Apple to allow purchased music to be universally useable."
Apple said it hoped the market would be left to decide 'which music players and online music stores are offered to consumers.'
Apple said it themselves. They think the market should decide? The only way that's possible is if the market is given a choice instead of locked down by DRM to one product. Proprietary DRM systems, such as Apple's, are specifically designed to ensure that the market can't decide. That's why they are "proprietary" and not "standard."
Unfortunately, this probably just means Apple will either cut out the French market entirely or simply change things so that they only do what is required in France actually in France. Such as by just selling music from the normal French market in France with a new more standard protection method that possibly even only works on French players. They will make the system used known to other French companies who should ask, and French MP3 players will have the ability to support the format (heck, maybe some world-wide players will, but, they will only be of any use if you can get to the songs made available to France.) Seriously, Apple knows that their proprietary system is protecting them from loosing a lot of customers who might like to try some better, MP3 players by people like Cowon's (I have to say I'm loving my U3 -- especially the fact that it supports both MTP and UMS modes, and from what I hear the X5 is quite impressive as well) or other music services (that use DRM -- the kinds like emusic using MP3 will work even on an iPod) but can't switch over because they are locked in by the fact that they'd loose everything they purchased through Apple's services since a normal player can't play their proprietary format (or, for that matter, the software won't even transfer to such a player if it did probably.)
I don't believe this law will benefit the world overall, though I do have a bare hope that maybe, just maybe, if they did what I thought, they would select the Sun DReaM format for the open format to use in France. If it were used enough, eventually all players would adopt it. Don't get me wrong, all DRM should be abolished as it is nothing but a way to punish the customers who actually paid (the pirates just hop on a sharing service and download a free unrestricted MP3 that plays on any MP3 player in the world for free without special software needed) but, since companies are too cowardly to give up the DRM crutch and walk on the leg they think is broken (but in fact is not,) if they must use a DRM format, it really needs to at least be an open standard like that which eventually everything could support and not lock you down to just one unreliable type of software (Windows Media Player -- which not only has a clunky unpleasant interface, but, has occasionally had problems even acquiring the license for something you actually own making it decide you do not own it.) It doesn't solve the overall problem, but, at least it would make dealing with that problem less painful. The way I see it, if Apple decided to use such a format in France, some player designers hoping to just sell one product world-wide would support that format and just leave it in when selling elsewhere (because, why remove it? Heck, it sounds good on paper that it supports yet another format, right?) Eventually, once there were enough of these, other services relying on Windows Media might choose to support it as well and then those of us who don't want to deal with all the problems and general crap associated with the over-hyped iPod/iTunes combo wouldn't be required to use the WMA/Windows Media combo with our players.
You're right that this whole law is crap, but you have the entire issue backwards. Not surprising, as the entire US coverage (including Slashdot) has the entire story backwards.
This whole law smacks of Frances communist-like laws to give poorly run French buisnesses a chance by gimping the better run foreign competitors.
No, it's an anti-Freemarket law that prohibits (gimps) French businesses from producing and offering their own compatible competing products. And it has an amendment that attempts to partially restore some ability for French companies to offer their own such products.
What you are bitching about (the supposed "iTunes law") is a small compromise amendment attempting to fix some of the problem caused by the main bill. It's not an "iTunes law", it is a DRM law that has a small so-called "iTunes" ammendment attached
It is currently legal (or was, before this law was passed) for any company to study the iTunes format and to make their own software that can read that format and to sell their own music in that format. Just as it is perfectly legal to figure out the basic TXT file format and to write your own software that can read those text files, and perfectly legal to have your software output your personal letters in TXT format.
THAT is the evil broken law that should not be passed. The amendment you are complaining about is a compromise amendment that says WAITAMINUTE - WE SHOULD NOT BE IMPRISONING SOME OF THESE INNOCENT PEOPLE, AND WE SHOULD NOT BE PASSING A NEW LAW TO *PROHIBIT* FRENCH COMPANIES FROM OFFERING THEIR OWN COMPATIBLE COMPETING OFFERINGS ON THE FREE MARKET.
I agree with you that the way this small repair amendment works is rotten. Apple shouldn't have document anything for anyone. However this small repair amendment whould go away entirely if we jusT killed the law carrying it. Apple would not have to document anything for anyone if the government didn't meddle in the marketplace in the first place. APple would have to document anything for anyone if the government didn't criminalize Apple competitors doing their own work and offering their own independant compatible competing products.
So while this small "iTunes" segment is rotten, the overall law is BETTER with this so-called-iTunes segement than without it. And of course best of all would be to scrap the DRM-law that carrying this segment.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
So here is a creative thing that my brother found (sorry to those who are going to rip on this any ways for any reason they see fit) but if you open up Windows Movie Maker then go Tools->Narrate Timeline you can use this to record any sound that comes out of your computers speekers. Rhapsody anyone?
Really, so where can I get Windows Media Player which offers access to the WMA stores for OS X or Linux? Whether MSFT licenses to portable MP3 player manufacturers is irrelevant since MSFT does not produce its own player and instead ties their technology to the windows platform. Do you people have reading deficiencies? WMA stores only work on "windows" whereas iTMS works on both OS X and Windows.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
... cruising approximately at the speed of light, yeah.
This time, and as far as Apple is concerned, that is.
In contrast, when the Administration of the EU as a whole has to scrutinize Microsoft's business practices based on their near-monopolistic position in the market, this is being done at a pace that makes that of a glacier look fast. "Dear Microsoft, we found out this, so let us have your statement within two months." "Now, we are considering that, so please, Microsoft, let us know what you think about it in the next couple of months."
And yes, I am living in one of these EU member states.
Well, there is no way to recreate the original from a lossy compression. That's what lossless compression is there for (Apple lossless, FLAC etc.). Compression that makes it possible to recreate the original by 100% cannot be as rigorous in "reducing" information (with lossless compression it's more like simplifying repetitive or redundant information etc.), so lossless compression is less effective in reducing file size, sometimes by orders of magnitude.
Trying to recreate the original of a MP3 is a bit like trying to make a perfect repaint of a painting using only a polaroid photo. You can't see the brushstrokes (lost that detailed information through compression, so to speak), so there's no way to know about those details. What's not there isn't there and even worse, there's no way to know where the MP3 format has actually reduced or cut out information from the original, without having the original also for comparison.
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
Yup, as a french, i can tell you, the only one who'll get f***ed up by this law is people and OSS ... not Apple :
... (wow sounds cool at first sight ...) ...
... we call it the "Vivendi-Universal Amendment" ... guess why :) ... aren't we lucky to have so honest people in our gouvernment?)
a few extracts of the law i tried to translate :
* is considered counterfeiting the fact of bypassing or providing ways (softwares, informations,...) to bypass DRMs -> ex : publication of deCSS will be considered counterfieting (and counterfeiting penalty is something like 2 prison years & 15k euros, not sure)
* creation of a council which is supposed to help for interopability
HOWEVER, this council has the right to prevent the source from being publicated if it could attempt to its efficacity -> have you ever heard of a drm not based on security through obscurity? no, so OSS will NEVER get this so-called interopability (applies do deCSS too)
* creating or distributing software that *can* be used for illegal downloading will be punished by a 300k euros penalty and 3 years of prison -> ex : bittorrent softwares, even if it's used in legal transfers too
* different penalties depending on the illegal act (downloading, providing, incitating, quantity transfered, network organisation...) -> a good way to make lots of money :
1) charge people
2) repeat operation many times with different reasons
3)
4) PROFIT!
Here, we don't call it the "iTunes Law"
(oh btw, the minister of culture (ahah) who created this law was convicted in 2004 of money laundering
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vichy_government
I for one welcome the new French law. Finally, Apple will be able to demand that CANALPLAY, coramusic.fr, Discovery, Fnac Music, M6, MSN Music, Packard Bell, Tiscali Music, Virgin Downloads, and Wanadoo Jukebox deliver the means to decode and play their music on iPods without all the strings that a Microsoft WMA DRM license comes with (product pre-approval and IP indemnification being the nastiest bits).
Of course, it remains to be seen how these companies can provide the legally mandated software when it belongs to Microsoft and not them. The French courts will have to hash that out. It appears the French legislature may have implemented their own version of Heinlein's "Crosspatch Decision."
No offense intended, but are you a Windows user or a computer user? What can be more easy; hit the burn button and rip again; with the convenience/cost of a (re)writable CD. It's not that iTunes is rocket science...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..