French parliament passes DRM bill. Will Apple bolt? 3/21/2006 1:15:26 PM, by Eric Bangeman Last week, we reported on French legislation that might have the effect of chasing the iTunes Music Store out of the country. Today, the National Assembly of France ratified the bill, setting the stage for the French Senate to consider it in May. Most notably, the bill would force Apple to open up its FairPlay DRM system so that consumers would be able to play music purchased from iTMS on the device of their choosing. Obviously, the bill would not just apply to Apple: Sony and others using proprietary DRM schemes would have to offer the same level of interoperability. Originally beginning in late 2005 as a pro-P2P effort on the part of a handful of National Assembly deputies, the bill has moved far away from its P2P-friendly roots. Instead of legalizing file-sharing and imposing a access fee on all Internet connections to reimburse copyright holders, the bill passed calls for penalties of €38 for illegally downloading music or other copyrighted media, €150 for making them available for upload, and up to €300,000 (along with jail time) for creating and distributing DRM-defeating software. Those aspects of the legislation are designed to bring France's copyright law into harmony with that of the European Union. The big story here is Apple and "DRM neutrality." A little over a year ago, a French consumer group sued the iPod maker along with Sony, alleging that the companies' proprietary DRM formats and digital music player exclusivity were anticompetitive and harmful to consumers. With the passage of the legislation in the lower house of Parliament, it appears that the French government is siding with the Union Fédérale des Consummateurs-Que Choisir in its belief that music store-digital music-player tie-ins such as the one that exists between Apple's iTMS and the iPod are not in the best interests of consumers. Technically speaking, there is nothing preventing French consumers (or anyone else) from transcoding their music into a format friendly to digital music players other than the iPod. It's quite simple: burn your purchased tracks to CD then rerip in the format of your choice. Sure, it will be lossy, but so would transcoding the music from one file format to another. Apple has been loathe to share the FairPlay love with anyone. That didn't stop RealNetworks from cracking it in 2004, an occurrence that drew a harsh rebuke from Apple a few days later, or DeCSS author Jon Johansen from finding another workaround in 2005. If the bill is passed by the French senate, it would force the company's hand. Apple would either need to license its FairPlay DRM within France or pull out of the country altogether. The decision could prove to be even more difficult if France's Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres gets his way: "Someone who buys a song has to be able to listen to it, no matter which device or the software of choice,'' Rogard said in an interview on Friday. If the interoperability articles are approved, "we'll see if we can push this on a European level.'' That looks like a nightmare scenario for Apple's current strategy. Even if the requirement that FairPlay be made available for licensing is ultimately confined to France, whatever tools are used to convert protected AAC files to another format would spread quickly across international borders. Although Apple has not yet commented on the legislation or its plans should it pass the Senate, it seems all but certain that the company would abandon the French market to the competition rather than open up FairPlay and weaken the foundation of its vertically integrated tower of power. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060321-6428.html
ANOTHER VIEW OF THE STORY, France pushes ahead with iTunes law By Reuters Published: March 21, 2006, 11:36 AM PST Tell us what you think about this storyTalkBack E-mail this story to a friendE-mail View this story formatted for printingPrint France's lower house of parliament passed a law on Tuesday that could challenge Apple Computer's dominance of the online digital music market by making it open its iTunes store to portable music players other than its iPods. French officials said the law is aimed at preventing any single media playing system--Apple's iTunes or Microsoft's Windows Media Player, for example--from building a grip on the digital online music retail market. "These clauses, which we hope will be taken up by other countries, notably at the European level, should prevent the emergence of a monopoly in the supply of online culture," Richard Cazenave and Bernard Carayon, National Assembly deputies from the ruling UMP party, said in a statement on Tuesday. The new legislation will require that online music retailers such as iTunes provide the software codes that protect copyrighted material--known as digital rights management (DRM)--to allow the conversion from one format to another. "Any interested party can ask the court...to get a supplier (of content)...to provide information that is essential for 'interoperability,'" France's new copyright law states, so that content can be read on any hardware support. The new piece of legislation will also allow consumers to use software that circumvents DRM only if it is done to convert digital content from one format to another. Using such software is currently illegal in much of the world. Currently, songs purchased from the market-leading iTunes service can only be played on iPods or Motorola's iTunes mobile phone, and iPods are not compatible with music that uses DRM from rival companies such as Microsoft. Consumers are prepared to pay twice as much for a song that can freely move between different devices, a recent study of the European Union project Indicare showed. Cause for concern "This creates legitimate concerns for content providers," Olivier Cousi, a copyright lawyer at French law firm Gide Loyrette Nouel said on Tuesday. "The problem is that it may risk weakening systems that are used to protect against piracy." The law could potentially hurt sales of iPods in France if consumers were able to play iTunes songs on other players. It could also lead Apple to close its French iTunes online store to preserve its DRMs. Apple and Microsoft in France declined to comment on Tuesday. "The vote today by French lawmakers is a direct attack on Apple's ability to design its own products and on the company's intellectual property rights, which will have a chilling effect on future innovation," said Jim Prendergast, the executive director of Americans for Technology Leadership, a U.S. lobby group. "Apple could immediately pull its iTunes product from France, giving consumers less choice when it comes to popular digital music," he added. The law would affect other French online music stores as well such as Fnac, part of retail group PPR, Virgin, whose French retail operations are owned by media group Lagardere, and Vivendi Universal Music, part of the telecoms and media group Vivendi. The government says the new law is designed to boost the legal digital music market and adapt the country's copyright rules to the rapidly changing online content market. It was adopted by the National Assembly with 286 votes in favour and 193 against and will be examined in the upper house, the Senate, in May. http://news.com.com/France+pushes+ahead+with+iTunes+law/2100-1028_3-6052058.html?tag=nefd.top
