After all sorts of
protesting,
name calling and
backtracking, the French legislature has finally managed to pass
their DRM law that could spell a bit of trouble for iTunes and other companies bent on locking down their own respective file formats. The language has been toned down a bit from the original draft, and we don't have a new
response from Apple or a hint of how this final version might be implemented, but the basic requirement of the bill is that Online music stores provide a method for users to play downloaded files on any device, as long as device manufacturers ask nicely. More recent revisions allowed some exceptions to this rule, including if the copyright holders weren't willing to have the DRM opened up, but from the sounds of it there are industry types on both sides of the argument. Some are jumping at the chance to price DRMed songs independently of Apple, yet still land them on the iPod. Apparently there are still a couple weeks for the law to be challenged and struck, but once it goes in action we'll be quite interested to see how Apple and others react -- a France sans iTunes?
posted Jun 30th 2006 11:02PM
Wow!
I hope Apple boycotts them.
simple solution...dont sell products in France. It's a useless country anyway.
you guys got it all wrong, france aint useless. im an american and im payin the price for the stupid things our gov does so dont diss smart countries.
besides its about time someone yelled at all the online music comps, itunes rocks but it sucks you cant use another device with it. sometimes the device is awesome but the programs your forced to use suck so bad its not worth it. this way its all good and you dont have to shift all your music into diff programs each time you get a new mp3 player
Good for France. I applaud their move. I only wish more countries could be so progressive. Hopefully this will turn out to be a win for the US consumer as well.
The most I would comfortably pay for a song is 25cents but I probably wont ever see that happening. But anyway, if the French pass this law it simply means Apple's exit of the French region. As well as other companies. And France will continue doing what they where probably doing in the first place, pirating their songs like everyone else.
Woo Hoo! Go France! And to think they could have beens spending all this time and money on working tward world peace. Thank God for that.
I love this commment by themoose "this way its all good and you dont have to shift all your music into diff programs each time you get a new mp3 player" hmm... Why are you shifting formats when you keep buying a MP3player. You would think if you bought a MP3 player... you have MP3's. I know its a crazy Idea.
I'm also an American and I agree, good for France. What they are trying to do is good for consumers in general. If all players and all music stores were compatible with each other, the consumer would win and the music industry would win and that's what France is trying to do.
The big question of course is, will it work? For France alone I doubt it, but if the entire EU gets behind it then Apple will budge.
I am an Apple supporter for the most part. I own an iPod and use iTunes. But I don't think Steve Jobs has learned his lesson yet. Just like 20 years ago when Apple tried to control the entire system with the Mac they are doing it again with their iPod. This company needs to learn to open up more. Apple's Fairplay DRM music files are a good format and there is no reason why other online stores shouldn't be able to sell them too. The music industry shouldn't have a problem with that, it's still DRM encoded and they'd still be making their money (probably more, as more stores and players would support it). The only people who would have a problem would be Apple and the French are calling them out on it. Good for them.
er, uh, apple already confirms to the law. this doesn't effect the iTMS as far as i can tell at all.
any song bought on the iTMS can be played on any player that supports MP3 (basically 100% of players) by simply burning to a CD and re-encoding. (they've provided a way.)
so, er, who cares?
Or just right-click, "Convert to MP3"
stop your stupid french-bashing.
interoperability is a very good idea for our, customers :
Do you seriously imagine to have to buy your CD on a Sony shop if you buy a CD player. i hope not.
interoperability is a major challenge for our electronic future as big corporation/oligopolies are try to lock and reduce the free market.
if we dont act ASAP, the customers will have to pay a huge price.
Well done, France. It's a shame that "sheep" Governments like USA and Australia don't follow suit and protect the interests of consumers instead of pandering to the needs of the companies which line their pockets.
"Euro-trash sure have that protest thing down."
Protesting is the one thing the French do well.
If Apple would just make an iPod out of cheese, the French would drop this silly law.
Can you use HP printer cartridges in Cannon printers? Can you use Lexmark and Epson cartridges in other printers? No. So way can't I use the paint I bought in the printer I want? For the same reason that Apple music is to play in Apple player (iPods). If you do not like that buy a CD or buy in another online store, there are thousands around, like the amazing and for now still legal http://allofmp3.com/.
The music you buy to Sony in MD can you be played in MD players, so what's the point of bother Apple? Simple other big companies want part of apple money, so the press France government to change the rules.
So I ask to the France people to think about this, and next time protest against printer and print cartridges companies, as well against Sony MD players...
AllofMP3 isn't legal and never has been, you're actually stealing when using it except you're paying for stolen material, the Russians just can't be bothered to shut it down.
Personally i'd like no problems from copy protection so that you can use any MP3 player with any download however until a universal format is realeased each company will use their own. France has the right intentions here but objecting outright would be bad for business (hence the watered down version of the law). If other countries started doing the same then slowly there would be enough pressure on the music suppliers like Apple to open their markets to rivals although for now you can always use the term "if you don't like it, don't use it".
Big Ed. isnt that what the US for?
Pedro Carvalho:
it's a little thing called monopoly and monopoly abuse,
+ it's legal for hp to make a cartridge for canon and vice versa (in europe), but for some reason they're not really intrested in doing so ... (makes it easier for customers to change to other brand of printer)
Vive La France!
Why aren't people talking about Microsoft and their closed, proprietary music stores which don't allow me to buy music on my Mac or play that music on my iPod? That seems to me to be a bigger deal...
this will force Microsoft to make a compatible protected WMA/WMV player for Mac OS X.
>> Or just right-click, "Convert to MP3"
Except if the file is one you bought from iTunes (*.m4p or whatever the other format is) you get the message:
"%songname could not be converted because protected files cannot be converted to other formats."
Great way to convert from *.wmv or something but it won't work for files that have been locked down with DRM.
This sucks for Microsoft now they are going to have to somehow figure out how to let Apple Macs play Windows media. If you have a mac and you go to sites like MSNBC you can't watch the video clips. There are tons and tons of sites where this will actually help Apple instead of hurting market share. Yes, the ipod may get hit a bit but the macintosh market will be open to sites and services they never could get to. Yes they may have to open up and have a file convertor for files instead of actually going through their library and changing everything. Windows is the one who has really used DRM not Apple so, in the end if they wanted to hurt Apple they actually hurt Microsoft even more, and I think from a certain perspective that is wha they continue to want to do....please leave Microsoft alone.
Seems like no one has thought of the possibility that Apple will still continue to sell the iPod in France as well as still have iTunes but all they need to do is just remove the iTMS from the French markets. Voila, problem solved.
Am I the only one who read that last bit as "have France without iTunes" and not "a France without iTunes"? Probably. Yeah, the law is pretty pointless, but who the hell cares? You want to argue that the Senate is getting more done?! Flag burning, gay marriage, and a nonbinding troop support bill. Wow guys, let's pile more election-year crap on the fire.
Alright, first off, it's stupid. That is the English word. I don't know how you can say we fight every battle they start, seeing as they had nothing to do with, oh, let's see, the huge war we're involved in now. Also, I don't think you know the what 'alienated' means, because you sure as hell can't argue that a country literally in the middle of Europe is alienated. France is actually a large market for Apple, as there is a large population of young, rich, tech-savvy people there. I do agree that they shouldn't pass a law forcing Apple to support other devices, but you're totally off base bashing the entire country.
so does this mean that if apple asks rhapsody we will be able to use our ipods for subscription services with a firmware update?
I'm sorry that I prefer to spell the word I want to, because of the crawler on engadget that searches for posts with bad language, vulgar comments, etc. And well if you paid attention in your history classes, their worthless. And alienated, thats a term that can sometimes describe something thats not normal, seeing as their backwards to most anything in the world. And well, if there so rich and tech-savvy, why are they attacking something they can avoid by switching companies??
Apple never suported european ISO standards, keyboard layouts, character sets, the macs were useles for us europeans for long time and they didn't care for last 15 years. Why do/would they care now? You must remember that an itune song costs 1 euro in EU and 1 dollar in US. (1EURO is 1.2788 USD) This also shows they dont care for europeans... And EU is bigger market than US.
Everyone knows that you can burn your music to a disc in iTunes and then rip them as MP3s, right? It's a hassle, but it's DRM free after that.
I'm not going to buy an iPod just to play three albums I got from iTunes that have DRMs.
so does this mean they'll start trying to make all video games interoperable as well? It'd sure be nice if my PS2 would play XBox games... haha.
"why are they attacking something they can avoid by switching companies??"
Because Forcing People to buy your player to use what should be your music is ethically wrong. Its a Monopolisitic and otherwise Unfair business practice.
"Who cares if the French bastards outlaw themselves off of iPods? Let them, just like all the other anything-but-Apple fanboys, play their crappy WMA files on some crappy iPod knock off that desparately tries to avoid looking like an iPod but inevitably looks foolish because Apple actually spends money on R&D and design. Hey, look on the bright side, ABA fanboys- you got an FM receiver on your crapware! Heh."
Wow, Your Ignorance amazes me. My question is this, how can you hear your iPod with your head shoved so far up your ass?
Apple can close the French store and open one in New Zealand lot's of ipods are sold here, yet we are still waiting.
I don't see what is wrong with locking the songs to the iPod as long as everyone knows that that will happen when they purchase a song...if they don't like it, they can buy something elsewhere.
In capitalism, the best company wins. At this point in online music sales, that company is Apple. If the socialists in France don't like competition and capitalism, then Apple should pull out of the country all together. I read somewhere that music sales there are only like 1% of their total sales anyway.
Hey, they beat Brazil in the World Cup!
im confused as to what people are arguing here, is it ipod having to play all formats or the completely opposite of itunes has to play on all devices. maybe some clarification would help
People here are retarded. This law is great for France's citizens. This means if Apple decides to withdraw from France, then ALL of their competitors can promptly fill the gap. It only means a loss of revenue for Apple. Their shareholders won't be happy.
Dear McPhearsom,
You are completely wrong. AllofMP3 is completely legal! Maybe what they do is not legal in the USA, France and in most countries in the world, but it is legal in Russia, and since you are doing the payment to a russian store online you are not doing nothing illegal, because the bought is consider to be made in Russia. It maybe a little bit confuse to you, but in Russia laws there is a failure regarding digital content distribution and until they reformulate their laws what they do is legal... Unfortunately.
I don't know if they changed the proposal but, didn't they want a software to crash the DRMed files, in order to play them in other players? Wow! Vive la piracy! It's amazingly dumb. And unfair.
I can't understand, there are other companies with their own file-protected format (and of course we have that examples: print cartidges, video games...)
If you're not agree with playing your iTunes songs only in you iPod, it's simple, go to another store (maybe they have the same restrictions with the crappy WMA). I don't care about the DRM (all of them have it), I want to keep using iTunes, because for me it's the best store.
I didn't know that trick of burning a CD to get DRMfree MP3s. So, what's the deal of DRM then, if it's so easy to crack them? :S
The one thing that bothers me with this is the death of the 99 cents song.
Yeah, I'm sure Napster is loving this because if it happens they can have 89 cent spngs in France that'll play on the iPod.
But then this takes the ball out of Steve Job's hands and back into the hand of the Music Industry..and We all know they are really itching to raise prices...And Without iTunes+iPod, it changes the game back to what we are used to, paying high prices for one crappy song.
France? Are they still around?
What a ridiculous outcome. Do they not realise that the iTMS does NOT sell music - it sells iTunes/iPod files! Thats all! Thats how Apple make them; thats how they work. I dont expect my old vinyl to work on my CD player, or to be able to open Word documents in any old text editor, or to be able to play XBOX games on my Mac!! I dont expect iPod/iTunes files to work on a Rio or in Realplayer, and I sont think I should! Idiots.
If only we had some form of economic system in which consumers that were unhappy with a companies performance could choose not to purchase items from them. :-/ Then we wouldn't need laws that impede our economy. I shall name this new system capitalism. I wonder how it'll work.
Wow. I'm not a big fan of the French, nor of Apple, but I'm baffled by the ignorance of a lot you US kiddies. What the French have decided on has nothing to do with either piracy nor socialism, but only with coming up for the rights of consumers. I'm pretty sure if the law was proposed anywhere in the States you would be all over it.
I'm not really into making up rights. This isn't "right of consumers." Its a right of one party to leech of another. Consumers have a universal right that can control unfavorable practices in the market; the right to not buy.
Fantastic, good to see that France is once again the only country brave enough to stand up for the population and consumers. I hope the rest of the EU will follow suit, hopefully they might actually get the language selection changed from English(United States) to English, English(GB)as microsoft do, or something similar, because last I remember the US did not invent English, it was a european language.
Im surprised that so many of the US people on here have not heard of France, are they not the ones that threatened to VETO your UN proposal that would of made the war in iraq legal.
Ah well and how many wars have they started? I certainly cannot think of many, in the last 100 years they have been the first on the scene in both world wars, and without the French Resistance spys Britain, Canada and the US could never of had any success in World War Two. In world war one they were pivotal to the success of the allied forces which the US were not even involved in (military wise at least).
As for the war starting, the wars that the US starts never seem to work out do they? Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan all went wrong at one point, and Iraq and Afghanistan is still going on. So please before critising over countrys consider bieng polite because every country has faults and the US certainly is not exempt from that, especailly when most of the world considers a lot of your policys backwards and barbaric.
Dear Pedro
Actually I'm not wrong, AllofMP3 is ONLY legal for Russians, anyone else using it is breaking copyright. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) say the Roms licence is not legitimate and it does not cover consumers in other countries even if it was. The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) has been allowed to sue AllofMP3 now because there is no limit on other countries buying the music so unless you are living in Russia you are breaking the law buying songs from the site. Songs are sold for as little as 5 pence there, do you really think that covers the costs? Read the news and tell me I'm lying...
Yes, France hasn't been involved with any wars recently. Does that exempt them from faults?
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Dang Tom, I knew you were out there when you used France and brave in one sentence but to bring up their war record is just straight foolish.
"First one on the scene in both world wars" is another way to say someone rolled right over them. Instead of saying we would have had no success without the French Resistance try: their weakness allowed such a war to happen. Maginot Line, give me a freaking break.
Where are you from exactly to think we weren't in Europe during WWI. You can't be from France otherwise you could just visit Belleau Wood where my branch earned the nickname devil dogs and stopped the Germans from taking Paris. It's more acurate to say retreating cannon fodder instead of pivotal.
As far as Vietnam, that was a France colony. The whipping at Dien Bien Phu is what split the country.
I personally think things are going well in Afghanistan. We'll most likely be in Iraq for many years to come much like we were in Germany. Of course there was no radical islamic involvement from other countries and the fear factor was much greater before precision munitions came along. Either way those two invasions paved the way for Libya to give up its nuke program and Syria to pull out of Lebanon (sadly they allowed Syria's puppets Hezbollah to ruin the place).
http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html