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."

Comments

Re:Confusing

[ameyer17]

You're kidding, right? The iPod doesn't even play music correctly, it inserts gaps where there shouldn't be gaps. REAL music lovers listen to the Rio Karma IMO.

Monopoly?

[spykemail]

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.