French iTunes law goes into effect
The closely watched French law that allows regulators to force Apple Computer Inc. to make its iPod digital music players and iTunes online store compatible with rival offerings went into effect Thursday, reports the Associated Press.
Although the law passed France's parliament June 30, the country's Constitutional Council last week threw out several measures, concluding that they violated constitutional property protections.
According to the AP, French President Jacques Chirac signed the legislation this week with the council's changes. The law was then published in the government's Journal Official on Thursday, formally putting it into effect.
Apple, which had described an earlier draft of the copyright bill as "state-sponsored piracy," did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment, the AP reported.
Although the law passed France's parliament June 30, the country's Constitutional Council last week threw out several measures, concluding that they violated constitutional property protections.
According to the AP, French President Jacques Chirac signed the legislation this week with the council's changes. The law was then published in the government's Journal Official on Thursday, formally putting it into effect.
Apple, which had described an earlier draft of the copyright bill as "state-sponsored piracy," did not respond to calls and messages seeking comment, the AP reported.
Comments
But the French want to have their cake and eat it too.
This is one of the reasons the French unemployment rate is so high. No respect for corporations = No jobs.
How many people did Apple employ in France? How many will get laid off when the record companies tell Apple to pull out? This also means iPods will cost twice as much as they'll have to be bought through E-bay and whatnot.
Hope it's worth it, you stinky socialists!
Blackbird, covering his as-, er, tailfeathers.
Hope it's worth it, you stinky socialists!
Soclialism FTL! I hope apple has balls and they just pull out of france. Continue selling iPods, but no more music store.
This law, as it now stands, is not that harsh. Apple can work around it.
The Scandinavian countries are more opposed than the French were. We'll have to see what happens there.
Soclialism FTL! I hope apple has balls and they just pull out of france. Continue selling iPods, but no more music store.
I can see Apple playing hardball with this, but I think they're going to first "wait and see" how France will enforce it.
Kasper - the new forum format will take some time to get used to, but it's good!
I thought they had thrown out the part of the law that required Apple to open up their DRM among other things...
Not exactly. They say that the 1789 code enshrines property rights. Thus, Apple, and others, must be paid for their giving others their information. The question is how much. If Apple asked 5 cents for every song, that would eliminate the profits from the other companies sales.
The other aspect is that Apple can go to their content providers and request (demand) a letter specifically stating that they do not want Apple to release that information to other competitors.
but how are they gunna inforce it
Well, if Apple operates as a legal entity, as I'm fairly sure they do, they must have their books inspected, just as any other company must. If a company requests a cross license, they must respond. It goes from there.
I wouldn't be surprised if Microsoft were paying the Governments to come up with these legislations.
Satire, right?
A lot of people want that kind of control here. It's insane: if you don't like Apple's DRM, DON'T FREAKIN BUY IT.
It's amazing how many people are so eager to give so much power over to their corporate overlords. Why do want companies like Apple and Microsoft, and groups like the RIAA, to have practically all the bargaining power, and to leave yourself with nothing other than "take it or leave it" as a choice?
DRM is supposed to be for the protection of the content of the media, not the business model of the company selling the music. Proprietary DRM is being abused as a way to push for market lock-in on Apple's products. Microsoft's DRM, although licensed to many media providers, is a ploy to push Windows OS and Microsoft licensee lock-in.
Government should either remove all penalties for reversing and cracking DRM, or require a universal DRM scheme that only protects content and nothing more -- and which doesn't kill off traditional "fair use" rights either. What's happening is that laws which ostensibly are supposed to be protecting intellectual property from illegal copying are being used instead to protect business models and reduce opportunities for competition.
If we don't fight DRM now, it will only get worse. Options like "well, why don't you just buy the CD then" will have gone away. Unless we work to change it, we're headed toward a world where all media and software are tethered on a very short leash to corporations the control them, and all you ever get to do is rent what you use on terms that greatly favor the content providers and which can be altered by them any time they like.
A lot of people want that kind of control here. It's insane: if you don't like Apple's DRM, DON'T FREAKIN BUY IT.
I don't buy iTunes' stuff for that reason.
I really don't give a damn that a person can burn to CD and rip it to an unprotected format because that drops the audio quality even further and is quite time consuming. I think it is a regression of flexibility when previous audio formats weren't restricted to one supplier of audio and one supplier of players.
Frankly, Apple's claim of this law being being state-sponsored piracy is FUD as far as I'm concerned. This is in stark contrast with their pre-iTMS days when Apple claimed that DRM was just a sham. Now they are singing another tune when they have their own system, I think the reason they like it is have a lock-in system. I really don't think that this type of law means that protections had to be removed. As far as I'm concerned, I would be fine with the ability to move between protection systems.
It's amazing how many people are so eager to give so much power over to their corporate overlords. Why do want companies like Apple and Microsoft, and groups like the RIAA, to have practically all the bargaining power, and to leave yourself with nothing other than "take it or leave it" as a choice?
I think you're missing the point here, my friend.
If you want to sell your soul to the corporate devil, that is your business... and you should be free to do so.
But I, for example, don't want the government to be stuffing down my throat anything that tells me how and to whom I have to give anything. They've already made enough of the stupid copyright laws that don't follow reality... enough!
I think that, considering that, 99+% of all of the digital content is being traded on P2P networks without any DRM, it's fair to say that Apple, Microsoft, and RIAA have ZERO barganing power compared to the consumers' "take it or leave it" power. And it will continue to be so unless consumer decide to "take it" rather than "leave it".
DRM is supposed to be for the protection of the content of the media, not the business model of the company selling the music. Proprietary DRM is being abused as a way to push for market lock-in on Apple's products. Microsoft's DRM, although licensed to many media providers, is a ploy to push Windows OS and Microsoft licensee lock-in.
The market is locked-in by Bittorrent, eDonkey, etc... Apple, Microsoft, etc... have zero market share.
If we don't fight DRM now, it will only get worse. Options like "well, why don't you just buy the CD then" will have gone away. Unless we work to change it, we're headed toward a world where all media and software are tethered on a very short leash to corporations the control them, and all you ever get to do is rent what you use on terms that greatly favor the content providers and which can be altered by them any time they like.
Fight what DRM?? The fight is OVER even before it started. For every DRM, there will always be anti-DRM.
It's only a matter of time before the business models abandon DRM, since, from the technology point of view, it doesn't work.
It's amazing how many people are so eager to give so much power over to their corporate overlords. Why do want companies like Apple and Microsoft, and groups like the RIAA, to have practically all the bargaining power, and to leave yourself with nothing other than "take it or leave it" as a choice?
DRM is supposed to be for the protection of the content of the media, not the business model of the company selling the music. Proprietary DRM is being abused as a way to push for market lock-in on Apple's products. Microsoft's DRM, although licensed to many media providers, is a ploy to push Windows OS and Microsoft licensee lock-in.
Government should either remove all penalties for reversing and cracking DRM, or require a universal DRM scheme that only protects content and nothing more -- and which doesn't kill off traditional "fair use" rights either. What's happening is that laws which ostensibly are supposed to be protecting intellectual property from illegal copying are being used instead to protect business models and reduce opportunities for competition.
If we don't fight DRM now, it will only get worse. Options like "well, why don't you just buy the CD then" will have gone away. Unless we work to change it, we're headed toward a world where all media and software are tethered on a very short leash to corporations the control them, and all you ever get to do is rent what you use on terms that greatly favor the content providers and which can be altered by them any time they like.
If you could figure out ho to do that without DRM, then please enlighten us. When you knock down a system, come up with something to replace it with, or you haven't done anything useful.
It's easy to complain, much harder to come up with something effective.
I don't buy iTunes' stuff for that reason.
I really don't give a damn that a person can burn to CD and rip it to an unprotected format because that drops the audio quality even further and is quite time consuming. I think it is a regression of flexibility when previous audio formats weren't restricted to one supplier of audio and one supplier of players.
Frankly, Apple's claim of this law being being state-sponsored piracy is FUD as far as I'm concerned. This is in stark contrast with their pre-iTMS days when Apple claimed that DRM was just a sham. Now they are singing another tune when they have their own system, I think the reason they like it is have a lock-in system. I really don't think that this type of law means that protections had to be removed. As far as I'm concerned, I would be fine with the ability to move between protection systems.
I don't agree with that.
Before, it was difficult to make copies, and they were generally not nearly as good as the originals, which weren't that good in the first place. It required some investment, and a fair amount of effort, and some expertise, far more than burning iTunes to a CD is now. Much more expensive to do as well. I would cost at least half as much as an LP cost to tape it.
Now, it costs almost nothing to do the same, and it takes little time, and no effort. Sending out 100 copies requires no more effort than sending out one. That wasn't true before either. Each copy was just as daunting as the last one, and cost the same.
Copying has, as you know, become rampant. that was never true before. I know, I got my first stereo tape deck in 1965, when I was 15.
Apple was not in favor of DRM . But now it would give an unfair advantage to others if Apple had to share theirs.
Apple isn't worried that people could buy tunes from other sites to play on iPods, or that they would but tunes from iTunes to play on other players, they are afraid of people not buying tunes because everybody will be spreading the tunes around, the way they do on P2P.
The copyright holders are also worried about that.
I think you're missing the point here, my friend.
If you want to sell your soul to the corporate devil, that is your business... and you should be free to do so.
But I, for example, don't want the government to be stuffing down my throat anything that tells me how and to whom I have to give anything. They've already made enough of the stupid copyright laws that don't follow reality... enough!
I think that, considering that, 99+% of all of the digital content is being traded on P2P networks without any DRM, it's fair to say that Apple, Microsoft, and RIAA have ZERO barganing power compared to the consumers' "take it or leave it" power. And it will continue to be so unless consumer decide to "take it" rather than "leave it".
The market is locked-in by Bittorrent, eDonkey, etc... Apple, Microsoft, etc... have zero market share.
Fight what DRM?? The fight is OVER even before it started. For every DRM, there will always be anti-DRM.
It's only a matter of time before the business models abandon DRM, since, from the technology point of view, it doesn't work.
You obviously don't look at sales numbers.
I don't agree with that.
Apple isn't worried that people could buy tunes from other sites to play on iPods, or that they would but tunes from iTunes to play on other players, they are afraid of people not buying tunes because everybody will be spreading the tunes around, the way they do on P2P.
Why would I want to do that if I can get anything that is available on iTunes music store from P2P BEFORE it comes out on iTMS?
Besides, getting around Apple DRM is easier than peeing on two fingers!
As far stopping piracy or however you want to call it, Apple DRM is useless.
The reason why Apple uses DRM in iTMS is because they sold their soul to the RIAA devil and RIAA has it in their contract.