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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."
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.
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 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...
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
It ain't that easy.
Business is supposed to work on the base that different manufacturers create different products. The customer, on the other hand, is the one to pick which product fits his needs best.
If the manufacturer forces him to use product A only with product B, the customer cannot make this decision. If he is forced to use product A if he wants to use product B, this violates the laws of free trade.
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!
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?
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
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).
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.
"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
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.
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.
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.