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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."
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.
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...
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
"If iTunes had to open to other players, the iPod would have to compete with other portable players only on the grounds that it has the superior technology."
And the iPod would still be the #1 selling portable music player.
I actually don't believe that people are buying iPods for iTMS... it's a fun catch phrase... but honestly I think people buy iPods because they are "cool" and work well... and this iTMS thing come with it (part of the "working well" is being able to manage your music easily) that just happens to allow you to buy music online... which is just an added convenience to an already compelling product.
I have an iPod myself, and besides buying a few songs off iTMS when I first got it... I learned quickly that I wasn't willing to "pay the price" of Apple's DRM (for instance I make home movies on my machine... and like to use music I own as background music or music during the menus... but I couldn't do that with the songs I bought on iTMS).
So what did I do? Did I get all pissed at Apple and try to make them open their DRM? No... I just took my business elsewhere (I buy CD's for mainstream stuff, and eMusic.com for more obscure stuff). This is how the free market is supposed to work! The _market_ should decide what is right for them!
After getting a bad taste in my mouth from Apple's DRM I don't want to buy into DRM at all any more... which is why I won't be picking up an HD-DVD/Bluray player anytime soon. I've made my choice... I just don't want the crap... but I don't need the government to legislate other people's choices for them.
Friedmud
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
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.