France To Force iTunes to Open to Other Players? 325
JordanL writes "It appears that France is pushing through a law that some feel may force Apple to open iTunes to other players. From the article: 'Under a draft law expected to be voted in parliament on Thursday, consumers would be able to legally use software that converts digital content into any format. It would no longer be illegal to crack digital rights management -- the codes that protect music, films and other content -- if it is to enable to the conversion from one format to another.'"
Journalism at its finest (Score:5, Insightful)
The law, if enacted, could prompt Apple to shut its iTunes store in France, some industry observers say, to keep from making songs vulnerable to conversion outside France, too.
If Apple had to shut down iTMS in France, its competition would have to shut down for the same reason.
"The person who will have converted iTunes songs will be able to make it available elsewhere," Marc Guez, head of the French Collecting Society for Music Producers rights (SCPP) told Reuters.
Not legally. The music is still protected by copyright law. Currently, the DRM can be removed illegally, and then the music can be illegally shared. Making the first step legal doesn't make the second step legal.
The law would also mean that other online French music retailers such as Fnac, part of PPR, would have to make iTunes songs available on their Web sites.
Can anyone translate this from journalist-speak to tech-speak for me? What exactly would Fnac have to make available?
Police agents can monitor music exchange Web sites and trace back the email address of beneficiaries by asking the Internet service provider for it through a court order.
Presumably they meant they can ask the ISP for the billing information of the customer who was using a particular IP address (not e-mail address), which the police agents obtained through monitoring P2P services (not Web sites).
Under what justification? (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, while I could definately seen reasoning that you should be able to format-shift, I don't see why people have an automatic 'right' to conversion. I mean, it shouldn't be illegal to format-shift, but neither should Apple be required to put a sytem in place to do so. There are plenty of ways for me to move to a different format. Generally, some quality loss is involved, but no more than format-shifting between physical mediums had (such as tape to CD, CD to mp3, etc).
Re:Under what justification? (Score:5, Insightful)
And no, Apple isn't required to do anything. They can take it or leave it. It's their choice to sell stuff in France.
Re:Well, this would be absolutely terrible (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple is a large corporation, just like any other, they are concerned about their bottom line.
Who would want to run an iTune on anything other than an iPod anyway, it would be like putting a lawnmower engine in a Ferrari.
I think you have your analogy backwards. You're saying that taking an iTune, converting it and playing it on another player is better than playing it in an iPod.
We don't want choice of what machines to play music on, we just want one good machine.
Speak for yourself, I want to have a choice as to what hardware I play my music on.
The unique selling point is the integrated experience, its the whole system, the iPod, the iMac, the iTunes, its not any one of them, its the whole thing.
I can see your point, but then, why does Apple have iTunes for Windows?
They are no more expensive than comparably equipped competitive products, its just that they sell for more because they give you more.
If they are "no more expensive than comparbly equipped competitive products", then why did you say they "sell for more"? They have a higher price tag because iPod is the most popular brand name portable MP3 player.
Anyway, you can play them on other machines if you really really want to, though why you would is beyond me.
Thanks for your approval.
Well, now someone got all that out of the way, maybe we could have a discussion...? Because the implications are quite serious, not just for music. For the whole lockin approach. Once one country adopts this, first, it will be impossible to contain within its borders. Second, it will be impossible to contain it to music. It could get real interesting.
Finally something we agree on. It could get realllly interesting.
Re:Seen it coming (Score:1, Insightful)
*(for those who like to blow people up)
Re:Well, this would be absolutely terrible (Score:2, Insightful)
What you call "integrated experience" (as in Windows XP
Re:Well gee (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Under what justification? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think in most countries, that would/should be regarded a very direct violation of consumers' rights. In Australia, you are supposed to get the product you paid for, not something different. By changing how you can "use" each song, Apple have essentially switched the product that people have.
Apple probably justify this by some stupid clause in their Terms & Conditions that states you don't really own the songs at all, or something. I'm sure they also have one of those "we reserve the right to change anything in the terms & conditions without notice" clauses, too.
Re:Well gee (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Journalism at its finest (Score:3, Insightful)
Given the recent data retention directive passed by the European Commision and parlairment and required to be ratified in national laws by mid 2007, police will have access to far more data than just billing information.
See this link on data retention directive [edri.org].Re:Would pulling out iTMS France be enough? (Score:2, Insightful)
And I say *may* do.
Because in the end, the law may even be amended to allow this only to institutions (libraries...) --originally in this very same law, converters themselves were explicitly illegal!
But I am still hopeful, because the story of this laws' vote has been funny enough (at one point in time, there was one article that would have legalized P2P exchanges provided one would pay an extra monthly fee!).
The resulting mess (government illegally removing that already voted article, then putting it back one day at midnight in the hope that it will be legally removed later once the majority's deputies have been aligned...) is so large that almost everyone is conscious there is something bad happening for young, supposedly "mp3-lover" electors.
As a consequence, the final removal of that "P2P legalized" article may well push the positive couterpart that the article about format translation (ie, removal of DRM) be accepted, as a sort of compensation.
This, is what I hope.
And there is absolutely nothing in the law about Fnac, Apple, or anyone else, and no obligation at all to them. It's only DRM fans that say Apple may close ITMS volutarily by fear that lots of french user would de-DRM ITMS songs. Which is, of course, ridiculous.
Re:Some explanations ... (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't use their own format, they use Windows Media Audio with MS DRM. Like everyone except Apple.
Re:Well, this would be absolutely terrible (Score:4, Insightful)
Some of us plan to hang on to the music we buy for many years to come. iPod may be your favourite player right now, but already the are a couple of serious contestants, and who knows when a competitor shows up that you just have to have, or when apple is once again taken over by idiots and start selling cappy players, o you move into a different maret segment than they prefer to serve. Do you really want to be unable to play your accumulated collection on anything else than official apple hardware or software?
Interesting experiment (Score:4, Insightful)
Most likely all the DRM companies would come together to make a program that converts from each DRM to another, and probably impose a time on the key to ensure if company X's DRM is broken that doesn't allow a hole that all other DRM media can be drained out through.
I digress.
What this would do economically is allow all digital media to compete on an equal footing. Don't like the price of a song on Napster? try iTunes. Want the latest MS Plays for Sure device but have a backlog of iTunes media? just convert it over. This would give consumers choice in their digital media and break the lock in that currently exists.
From what I know of Apple is that they make almost no money on iTunes but a huge amount on hardware, so in theory this would allow them to use their iTunes's competitors to seel iPods. And from the MS side this would break the stranglehold that Apple currently has on the portable media market. In theory this looks like a win-win for everyone. But I don't expect anyone to go for this, in business if your competitor is winning that usually means you're losing. And what multi-billion dollar company wants to take that chance?
Re:Journalism at its finest (Score:3, Insightful)
Total BS. itunes sells exactly the same music in France as all the other online providers (in France). There is no "foreign cultural influence" there. Secondly, Vivendi is French and is the largest music publisher in the world. Thirdly it would be the first time the French government is interested in the consumers and not doing wathever the music lobbies want it to do.
Not a bad idea (Score:5, Insightful)
What would be even better would be a ban on DRM systems that prevent absolutely the exercise of Fair Dealing rights and/or copying under Special Licence {e.g., I have permission from the band Ocean Colour Scene to make copies of any of their work for my own use; any DRM system that does not take this into account, perhaps by requiring a password to enable copying, should be illegal}.
Re:Governments vs Corporations (Score:1, Insightful)
Socialist France with a right wing president (Score:5, Insightful)
Last fall we had a law making it easy for customers to get out of phone and tv contracts where it was not possible to cancel the contract before the renewal period (usually 12 months).
Keep in mind that elections are due next year and that for those unaware of French politics (although VERY funny) Chirac has been elected last time with 82% of the votes because he was facing our local facist Le Pen, so the left voters HAD to vote for Chirac in the second round of the presidential election of 2002.
Then Chirac promised he would not "forget" this and make a government for "everybody" and not just for his "side". Of course this was quickly forgotten and now with the elections coming he has to steer a little bit to the left after 5 years of "shut up I've been elected and I do what I want".
Additionally I work with Czech people and in Czech "Curak" pronouced "shurak" is very close to "sheerak" and means "Asshole", languages are great aren't they ? And Bush is pronounced like "bouche" in French which means "mouth" and also "liar" if you use it in "c'est une bouche" translated as "he's full of mouth"...
Bottom line is that France is rediscovering freedom for consumers instead of corporations because elections are coming up, but it's a good time to grab things...
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Seems like it will be legally shared (Score:1, Insightful)
That's not going to happen -- the whole "global license" thing has been rejected last week -- the French government made quite a fool of itself at this occasion (removed this particular part of the proposal although it had been voted in parliament, then introducing it again), but let's say that it won't be the first time, and that they're currently having other problems to solve
Re:Under what justification? (Score:3, Insightful)
And yes, I'm nitpicking... ;)
Re:Journalism at its finest (Score:2, Insightful)
And, apparently, a coward...
Re:Journalism at its finest (Score:3, Insightful)
It's just that the end user would now have a legal right to break the DRM and convert the file into what ever format he needs which of course renders the DRM pointless but Apple would not be breaking their contract if this law was enacted.
Re:Under what justification? (Score:1, Insightful)
I understand that in America it's perfectly legal to sign away your rights even if you don't understand you're doing it. In europe this wouldn't be legal.
Apple should change the "buy" button to read "rent". That way they would fool anyone to think they are actully buying the music.
Re:Well, this would be absolutely terrible (Score:3, Insightful)
Uh huh. That's why the MP3 player I'm listening to right now has:
- proper gapless playback - fm radio
- built in microphone
- ability to record from either radio or microphone
- ability to take media files off it, as well as put them onto it
- UK and EU power adapter included
None of which is true for the nearest ipod. And it cost about 80 quid less.
RDF indeed.
Re:Well gee (Score:3, Insightful)
Back in the day, only a minority of people could afford recording equipment. They soon found that they couldn't make enough money out of charging artists to record albums which would then become the artist's property that they could sell to the public, so they came up with another model: get the artist to sign over their rights -- in exchange for a one-off payment -- to the recording company, who would take care of the whole business of selling records and arrange for the artist to be paid a cut from each one sold.
It's this exclusivity that's the beginning and end of the problem -- the fact that once an artist is having their recordings distributed by one label, no other label can distribute their recordings.
Most other things are available from several sources. For instance, I can buy a loaf of bread baked by Sunblest, Kingsmill or Warburtons; or I can buy flour and yeast and bake my own. There is, in principle, no artificial barrier to a new player entering the market; if their product offers value, as judged by those who buy it, then it will be successful. "Value" is of course a nebulous concept, and so it should be; but in this case it is likely to mean a loaf of bread that tastes better, or costs less than what is already available.
The same holds true for things such as standardised industrial components. If I'm buying M4 x 20 steel bolts with a raised Posidriv head, or 4.7k ohm 0.25 watt resistors, or 80 gsm A4 paper in packs of 500 sheets, or 15mm. end-feed plumbers' tee-pieces, I still have a choice of suppliers; but there is no subjective assessment of value, and anyone's part will do the same job as anyone else's.
I think there is a market about to emerge for a new way of running a record label. The steps would be as follows:
There's no reason in principle why an artist shouldn't have the same album available on different labels, possibly even selling at different RRPs, at the same time; they would be competing with one another strictly on the basis of the services they offered {studio facilities, in-house producers and session musicians, pressing capacity and so forth}. Some labels would specialise in quick turnaround at a slight premium. Supermarkets probably would have their own record pressing operations, but no studio facilities -- they would work strictly from masters.
Re:Vive la France! (Score:1, Insightful)
We can just change "France surrenders" back to "freedom surrenders".
Re:Well gee (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Under what justification? (Score:3, Insightful)
In the case of IP, we have gone from starving artists in studios trying to make a buck on their art, to starving artists in studios with these "middlemen" called record labels, taking fistfulls of money from the consumer and handing the artists a pittance. That's where the greed factors in, and we suddenly start seeing the laws squeezed and pulled for every dime they're worth. So it's no longer the law trying to insure fair treatment of the little guy, but it's big hammer is now being swung as hard as possible to wring money out of the consumer.
To this end, they impose truly ridiculous rules on what you can do with the art once you PAY for it. I am not a big fan of leasing/licensing, but I recognize it is necessary in some form to insure artists are compensated for their work. Unfortunately, when you get the labels in the middle, taking a massive cut, there is simply too much greed. And the laws being initially tilted to favor the poor artists, are now used by the major labels in ways the laws were never meant to be used. Laws that already put the consumer on the short end of the stick. If it were not for the fact that a few artists still benefit from the protection of copyright laws, I would say scrap the whole thing. Laws should be evaluated periodiucally to determine if they are still serving the purpose for which they were drafted, that no serious abuse of them is taking place (indicating they need some overhauling), and that there is still a need for the privleges they grant to the "weak". As of now, copyright laws are only minorly serving their original purpose and are being seriously abused, but unfortunately there is still a need for them for the numeric majority/financial minority in the industry.
The artists needed protecting. The labels DO NOT. They are already plenty cut-throat as it is, they're not starving artists by anyone's description, they don't need any more help.
DMCA _is_ useless in France (Score:5, Insightful)
Despite what you may think, US law is not global in nature. Recent IP law "upgrades" are in effect global because the same companies buy the same laws all over the world.
Re:Seems like it will be legally shared (Score:5, Insightful)
It's fairly clear that I have a moral right to keep my work secret. The moment I make it public and people start reading or viewing or using it, however, it becomes part of the heritage of the society, it influences and changes - and, if it is widely consumed, society end up with a much larger investment in it than I had.
Presently, society grants me the privilege of restricting copying - using its guns or the threat of them to punish those that defy my wishes. This is, however, not something I can demand. It is something that society grants.
Eivind.
Re:What a complete muddle! (Score:3, Insightful)
Format shifting is legal everywhere. Distributing copyrighted material without permission is illegal everywhere. Any existing DRM can easily be cracked, making legal format shifting easy. This means one customer will only buy the same content once.
The only way for the copyright cartel to prevent the customer from using his music on any player, software or hardware, any time, forever, is to make format shifting de facto illegal. The current way of doing this is a combination of DRM and laws prohibiting cracking of said DRM and distribution of tools and information relevant to cracking DRM. If any part of this chain fails, customers can de facto legally do what they can de jure legally do.
Re:Under what justification? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Some explanations ... (Score:4, Insightful)
It is arbitrary barriers that make me most angry as a consumer. Because all costs of development are in the end borne by the consumer, I am effectively paying extra to make the product less useful. Where the R&D dollars could have gone into researching a better audio codec or (heaven forbid) a stop button in iTunes, they instead went into developing Fairplay and preventing me from using purchased files in some ways.