After all that fuss, France bends on their DRM law?
After a month or so of heateddebate, including France's Trade Minister telling Apple: "I don't want the crap," France's DRM-killa legislation has lost most of its teeth in committee, after being passed by the National Assembly. The new draft of the legislation switches out phrases like "copy in an open standard" for "protected copy," puts restrictions on getting access to information needed for interoperability, and says that DRM publishers don't have to publish source code if they can prove it harms that DRM's security. It sounds basically like a whole bunch of wins for team Apple, a lot of lost ground for Mr. "I don't want the crap," and a possible overall loss for consumer rights in France. Turns out the bill has been hijacked by Universal/Vivendi and they're having their way with it, but nothing has been passed into law yet, so we'll just have to wait and see how this sorts out.
[Via Ars Technica]
