France’s New DRM Law is State-Sponsored Piracy - guess who's sayin' that?

[Deja Q]

Apple

http://news.com.com/2100-1025_3-6052754.html

France's lower house of parliament passed a law Tuesday that would require digital content providers to share details of their rights management technologies with rivals. iTunes songs are protected by Apple's FairPlay technology and are incompatible with most non-iPod players. The bill, designed to prevent any single music-playing technology--and hence, any one media seller or device maker--from dominating the online market, now moves to France's senate.

(SNIP)

Apple's dominant iPod works with songs purchased on iTunes--the dominant online media store--and with tracks that are not copy protected, but it doesn't play songs that are protected by Sony's or Microsoft's digital rights management software and sold through non-iTunes services.

Apple could choose to withdraw iTunes from the French market rather than change its business, Piper Jaffray senior analyst Gene Munster speculated in a research note on Tuesday.

"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 wrote. "While this sounds like a drastic move, we believe it would not materially impact business. We estimate that approximately 20 percent of iPod and iTunes sales occur outside of the U.S. The French market alone is likely less than 2 percent of iPod and iTunes business."


Wow. I had no idea this was piracy; making a purchased song compatible with more player technologies. :shrug:

[BlackHeart]

1. I dunno...

Is this not unlike like making a Ford engine fit in a GM car?

[QC]

2. More like Exxon designing its gas to work only in Fords.

If, of course, Exxon owned Ford.

[BlackHeart]

3. Ok, but that would

be fair, wouldn't it?

[CBGLuthier]

4. No it isn't

A better anaogy would be if Ford were to start building highways. If Ford replaced all of our highways so the only way you could get there is on a Ford highway and then they said only Ford cars can drive on it.

iTunes is practically a monopoly. That puts their practices under special scrutiny.

As it is Apple reneged on an agreement with the other apple company by getting in the music business which they said they would never do. I believe they are paying a small percent to the other apple for every song downloaded.