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...
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.
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
Oh yeah, and the United States' capitalist-like laws have never done that.
Breakfast served all day!
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.
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?
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?
You're not forced to use them, no. But that's not the point.
The point is that people want to have a portable music player. They don't care what manufacturer is from (let's take the "ideal" customer for now, and he has no irrational preferences for any brand).
Now, this ideal customer makes the decision which player to get. And, being the ideal customer, he is also ideally informed (i.e. he knows everything about every player on the market).
Now he also knows that iTunes is maybe the most comfortable way for him to buy online music. So he will buy an iPod because he cannot choose another player if he wants that.
The point isn't that I don't want an iPod. The point is that I want the iPod to succeed because it is the better player and not because it has a foot in the door with iTunes. The customer does not care which player he gets, he chooses the "best" model for him. And here the iPod has the advantage of being "hauled along" with iTunes, a quasi-monopoly Apple has on the content side for your gear.
The goal is to keep Apple at its toes to make better iPods with better batteries, more space and so on. I don't want to "hurt" Apple, but I do want the best player for my money. And with the advantage of iTunes, Apple could create players that are under par compared with the competing manufacturers of portable music players and they'd still sell.
And that doesn't look good in my books of free market. He who makes crap should perish. He who creates better goods should rise.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
How will France lose their battle with Apple? Are Apple going to go to war with France? Of course not - they'll both lose, as Apple will lose revenue and the French government will lose taxes on that revenue. Whatever you think about France's decision here, equating 'socialism' with 'wrongness' is subjective, and cheap shots about French military victories (PML PUT IT IN GOOGLE LOL!) simply cheapen your post further.
Other than that, good try, thanks for playing.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
I think it is an issue of deliberate lock-in. We wouldn't dream of buying a Sony CD, much less having to buy Sony's CD player in order to use Sony's CD. Then if you bought a Philips CD, you'd have to use a Philips player. It is a regression of formats to go from something that was open and now it is either locked to a certain brand product or you have to degrade the quality to play it in some other device. That Tunebite program is only a loop-back reencoder, it doesn't just strip the protection, it also degrades audio quality again to use it in some other product.
Another concern brought up by the Scandinavian cases is that Apple reserves the right to change the terms of the use of the product after you've paid for it, and you get no recourse if you don't like what they do.