Apple upset over French plan to open iTunes!
It's really great to see that countries such as France appear to be making a stance in parliament against DRM technologies like that utilised in iTunes. Apparently Apple stated that if the planned law were passed in France it would be effectively "state-sponsored piracy" Here are a few recent articles on the subject, with interesting views and comments.
If you watch the BBC News video clip it is heartening to realise that the French government are firmly behind software models and methods which operate like TVersity; enabling a user to stream or download and listen to any type of media in whatever format the device they have purchased, supports.
If you watch the BBC News video clip it is heartening to realise that the French government are firmly behind software models and methods which operate like TVersity; enabling a user to stream or download and listen to any type of media in whatever format the device they have purchased, supports.
Apple is truly shameless, they said in their official release to the press that for Apple it won't matter since the iPod will sell better due to the fact that people will be able to fill it up with free content. Now hos is that relevant? All the French bill requires is that Apple allow other players to license their DRM scheme, or allow other to convert from one DRM scheme to the other. It does not say people must be allowed to strip DRM, so did Apple put a spin on it or what?
Posted by
Ronen Mizrahi |
8:42 PM
Have you seen the policy paper by Tim Lee published on the Cato Institute website? (http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=6025) There may be hope in the future that thoughtful people can persuade Congress to return our copyright law to sanity.
Posted by
lukeness |
9:49 PM
I just watched the second episode of CrankyGEEKS as they were doing a segment on France and iTunes.
What can I say, they seem to deliberately miss the point and have made me CRANKY!
I added a comment against the show
http://crankygeeks.com/blogs/crankygeeks/
archive/2006/03/22/55.aspx#Comments
PS, I can’t spell as I put GRANKY instead of CRANKY in my comments on the shows comment page.
Posted by
MikeL |
3:17 AM
"Apple's core problem with France" is another take on the issue from the producer of the BBC's tonight programme Adam Livingstone.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/
newsnight/4837834.stm
Hmmmm DRM is a complex subject that's not going to go way in a hurry that's for sure.
Posted by
MikeL |
6:04 AM
Lukeness, this is a very interesting paper, probably deserves its own blog post. I like especially because it reminded me that the real problem is not DRM it is the DMCA.
Posted by
Ronen Mizrahi |
1:28 PM
Yes, Ronen... we probably can't get rid of DRM until the DMCA is re-written. This may be a long fight, though!
Posted by
lukeness |
6:19 AM