French lawmakers approved an online copyright bill Tuesday that would require Apple to break open the exclusive format behind its market-leading iTunes music store and iPod players. The draft law - which also sets new penalties for music pirates - would force Apple, Sony and others to share proprietary copy-protection technologies so that rivals can offer compatible services and players. That would permit consumers for the first time to download music directly to their iPods from stores other than iTunes, or to rival music players from iTunes France. Lawmakers voted 296-193 to approve the bill. The legislation now has to be debated and voted by the Senate - a process expected to begin in May. It seems most likely that Apple will withdraw iTunes from France rather than open up it’s FairPlay technology. I want an open iTunes too!
March 25th, 2006 at 7:48 pm
we dont like france anyway. certainly not an allie of the USA
March 28th, 2006 at 7:46 pm
[…] Echoing France’s ban on DRM, it now seems that Denmark is to follow and also ban DRM. Reportedly, Maersk and the Denmark’s largest telecommunications company, TDC, are speaking out in favor of such an action. Maersk and TDC are not only two of largest companies in Denmark, but they are amongst the largest and most powerful in Europe. Both also operate online music ventures. Gert Rieder, CEO of TDC, said that “We can only press for something like the French, because it gives the consumers as many opportunities to shop for music.” In Denmark it is currently illegal to circumvent DRM. Brian Mikkelsen, the Danish Minister of Culture, said that legislation addressing the matter would be introduced in 2007. He expressed optimism that DRM interoperability would be backed by the various record labels. Goodbye iTunes Denmark? Feed for this Entry Trackback Address […]
March 29th, 2006 at 10:51 am
DRM is important, and Apple wouldn’t have got the support and back-catalogue from the major labels without it. However theirs does tie you into one player, and surely that is anti-competitive. If there was a fixed standard, like MP3, why not use that, protected or otherwise. Microsoft get called anti-competitive for WM format, which I personally can’t stand. Apple would probably have more customers for the iTMS, and maybe take a hit on the iPod, but it builds kudos with the customers, because they truly are open.
As for France not being an ally to the US, Britain was, and look at us! The war in Iraq was wrong, everyone knows it, and there is no freedom or democracy in Iraq. The French were right, believe it!
March 29th, 2006 at 10:05 pm
It’s not often you’ll see an Englishman say this…
VIVE LA FRANCE!!
As realitycheck said above, Apple’s FairPlay system currently locks you into buying from one store and using one player (which STILL doesn’t directly support WMA) and it disgusts me that drooling Americans can’t get beyond their completely brainless “OMG TEH FROGGIEZ!” reaction to actually see that the French are making the same call to Microsoft wrt MS DRM, to Sony and OpenMG and to Real with their (the already open source) Helix DRM. Nope, you’re all far too busy proving all those nasty things the BBC says about you right.
What’s also ridiculous is Apple’s statement that the French law would be “state sponsored piracy” in a country that also has the EUCD which outlaws the circumvention of DRM. The new French calls for Apple to licence FairPlay to other manufacturers, since when does allowing iRiver owners to buy from iTunes equate to piracy? Or indeed allowing iPod owners to buy from Napster? or Wippit?
Jobs has a near monopoly over the MP3 and online legal download market. He knows this and wants to protect it. He used vendor lock-in to get this monopoly (grudgingly releasing a Windows version of iTunes and the iPod) and he wants to hold on to that vendor lock-in, in the same way that Microsoft want to hold vendor lock-in by only developing their software for Windows. The difference is that Microsoft lock-in is seen as baaaaaad whereas Apple lock-in is seen as gooooood.
I applauid the French (as an ENGLISHMAN) and only hope that the rest of Europe follows France’s lead.
November 28th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
I just got my 2000t and all of my songs are skipping in iTunes, and I cant figure out why. If someone could help me out and tell me how to fix this I would really appreciate it because its driving me crazy. Thanks for the replys.
April 11th, 2008 at 6:26 am
I think that you really can judge people by the way they comment different stuff. Some people, even expressing negative thoughts, are still polite and they respect and understand other people. Some people are not even trying to be nice, they just don’t care. I think self-confident person will always act nice, no matter what other people do