March 23rd, 2006
Apple: France’s New DRM Law is State-Sponsored Piracy
By Michael Santo
Contributing Writer, RealTechNews
As I wrote earlier, France was working to force DRM open, not just FairPlay, but all types. The reason is to prevent any one music-playing technology from dominating the online market. On Tuesday the lower house of parliament in France passed the law; the bill now moves on to France’s senate for a similar vote.
“The French implementation of the EU Copyright Directive will result in state-sponsored piracy,” Apple said in a statement. “If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers. iPod sales will likely increase as users freely load their iPods with ‘interoperable’ music which cannot be adequately protected. Free movies for iPods should not be far behind in what will rapidly become a state-sponsored culture of piracy.”
“We believe Apple is more likely to drop out of the French market than open up its FairPlay DRM to allow iTunes to play on competing MP3 players,” he (Piper Jaffray senior analyst Gene Munster) wrote. “While this sounds like a drastic move, we believe it would not materially impact business. Source: News.com
We Say: I can see France’s point, and actually … I like it. As people who have read my posts know, I’m no fan of DRM anyway. According to Piper Jaffray, the French market is probably only 2% of Apple’s business … but I still can’t see them pulling out completely.
JustaDog says:
Screw France - Go Apple!
Almost makes me wanna buy a couple of Power Books!
March 23rd, 2006 at 3:37 pm
Begging To Differ says:
APPLE SPINS GREED INTO ALTRUISTIC HUMANITARIANISM
Nick Naylor’s got nothing on Apple. Here’s what Apple had to say about French legislation that would require Apple to open up it’s DRM to competition: “The French implementation of the EU Copyright Directive will result in state-sponsored piracy,”…
March 23rd, 2006 at 9:08 pm
Reg says:
Interoperable DRM != no DRM.
Death to DRM would be a good thing in my opinion, but the French ostensibly don’t want that (all record companies would cease online distribution altogether if that was to come about).
They are instead trying to mandate a situation where Apple must use Microsoft’s PlaysForSure(TM) DRM in order to be interoperable with devices which don’t support FairPlay, or hand out the keys to the kingdom for the latter.
Forcing a company to use a competitor’s technology, or give their own away, to supposedly give customers a greater choice is not something that should be done in a free market.
Market forces should decide.
If people really want PlaysForSure(TM), they’ll stop buying iPods. If people want iPods instead of devices that use the Microsoft software, they’ll buy them instead. If customers want more than either party is offering, they’ll vote with their buying habits.
As long as there is choice operating in a fair and open market, the government should keep its nose out.
March 24th, 2006 at 1:04 am
Michael says:
In any case, I think it’s a little early to be claiming that iTunes has won the war. They have a very, very significant headstart. But Amazon entering the download business will shake up the situation considerably. It’s also no secret that lots of iPods are playing non-iTunes files. So I would have held off legislating at this stage already. Besides, anything a ssweeping as tis should be debated at a European level rather than purely national.
March 27th, 2006 at 7:29 am
Apple Offers iPod Volume Limits in New Software Update | Etixet says:
[…] As the article says, this sort of limit was in place in France (ironically, which Apple might pull out of, because of the new law regarding DRM that appears to be on its way to passing) , so why didn’t Apple just anticipate this and offer a fix globally, before? Share and Enjoy:These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. […]
January 7th, 2008 at 5:29 am