French lawmakers OK bill to force open iTunes

scooter · Mar 22, 2006

anybody else watching this in the news?

"PARIS - France’s lower house of parliament passed a law Tuesday that could challenge Apple Computer Inc.’s dominance of the online digital music market by making it open its iTunes store to portable music players other than Apple iPods.

French officials said the law is aimed at preventing any single media-playing operating system, such as Apple’s iTunes or Microsoft Corp.’s Windows Media Player, 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."

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11943799/

surfwax95 · Mar 22, 2006

I hope it goes through and they do the same here in America. Having the iPod be the ONLY Mp3 player that works with iTunes is so Micro$oft of Apple.

Yea, yea, they're out to make money, blah blah... :mac:

rman · Mar 22, 2006

iTunes does work with other mp3 players.

Kokopelli · Mar 22, 2006

Far more likely Apple will pull iTunes out of the French market.

surfwax95 · Mar 22, 2006

rman said:
iTunes does work with other mp3 players.

Well then what's the fuss about?

*Reads further down in the article*

Oh, sorry.

inflexion · Mar 22, 2006

Kokopelli said:
Far more likely Apple will pull iTunes out of the French market.

Id second that why would they effectively allow piracy?

dan828 · Mar 22, 2006

inflexion said:
Id second that why would they effectively allow piracy?

Piracy is rampant already. The people that don't pirate music are either *gasp* honest or just to stupid and lazy to spend the minimal effort it takes to find and illegally download the music that they want. (** edit, as some seem unable to understand this, this isn't advocation piracy, it's saying piracy is easy and you'd have to be stupid or lazy not to be able to figure out how to do it if you wanted to. Nor is it saying that anyone that doesn't pirate music is stupid or lazy.)

In my experience, just about the only thing that DRM does is make it difficult for legitimate music purchasers to use the product they purchased in the way that they want to. The French law recognizes that.

rman · Mar 22, 2006

dan828 said:
In my experience, just about the only thing that DRM does is make it difficult for legitimate music purchasers to use the product they purchased in the way that they want to. The French law recognizes that.

How is that?

to_tough_to_die · Mar 22, 2006

dan828 said:
Piracy is rampant already. The people that don't pirate music are either *gasp* honest or just to stupid and lazy to spend the minimal effort it takes to find and illegally download the music that they want.

I'm not lazy, or stupid. But A) if you want really support an artist, buying their CD is a much better way, and B) the *legal* stuff I've downloaded off of Bittorrent doesn't have the sound quality I get off of a CD (granted I also have my entire collection encoded in Apple Lossless and run my iPod through an amp with PocketDock).

mblphnlvr · Mar 23, 2006

rman said:
How is that?

Well, how about apple not letting you burn your downloaded music onto an mp3 cd. My aunt is trying to do this to play in her car, but the only way to do it is by a big conversion process. This is stupid, she paid for it!

evolve · Mar 23, 2006

mblphnlvr said:
Well, how about apple not letting you burn your downloaded music onto an mp3 cd. My aunt is trying to do this to play in her car, but the only way to do it is by a big conversion process. This is stupid, she paid for it!

I can burn my Downloaded stuff to a CD...

dtravis7 · Mar 23, 2006

evolve said:
I can burn my Downloaded stuff to a CD...

So can I.

Tiranis · Mar 23, 2006

When you buy music from iTunes you don't buy the music itself, you buy the file that contains the music together with DRM. That's the agreement you make with Apple when purchasing a song. Nobody forces you to shop at iTMS, but if you do, you have no right to complain since you agreed with Apple's terms.

Apple never promised you a full rights to the song with all the priveleges, they promised you a AAC file with DRM. That's what you got. If you're not happy with that, don't buy it—simple as that.

If I buy a car that runs on gas, I won't expect it to start running on water (oxygen, diesel, etc.) all of a sudden.

chuckalicious · Mar 23, 2006

Dan828. [Snip] You claim people who don't pirate music are stupid or lazy. How about being, *gasp* as you say, honest. I have the money, so I can buy the CDs, or the tracks off iTunes. If I don't have the money, I won't buy the CDs, but I certainly won't go out and pirate the music just because I'm either too tight to spend my money on legit purchases or because I don't mind stealing.

Copying music is exactly the same as shoplifting or any other theft, it's just easier. By not buying an artists music, the company that owns the copyright, and who pays the artist, don't get the money. In turn that will reflect on said artists popularity via sales and chart positions, and, as is seen quite often, may affect how they are treated in the future by their record company, lowering the chance of the artist releasing more quality work.

I buy tracks off of iTunes and I haven't found the DRM restrictive in the slightest, I play it on multiple machines, my iPod and the CD player in my car. That's all I want to do with it.

So if the French gov decide that Apple have to make their DRM open to other players, as will MS and anyone else, then I don't blame them for pulling out of France. The French complain about almost everything anyway

Kokopelli · Mar 23, 2006

chuckalicious there is no need for insulting other members. I happen to disagree with Dan828 on this as well but I don't feel it reflects upon his intelligence.

Dan828 what rampant piracy shows is that given the opportunity a large number of people will do something that they know is illegal. Another significant part of the populace believe it is not even illegal. (Yes copyright law varies from county to country, I am discussing U.S. and French law since the stance seems clear in those two countries.) Finally quite a few do not find it morally incorrect though I do. What DRM as Apple does is makes the user aware that unfettered sharing is not the intent of the seller (ITMS) nor the right of the buyer. It does not restrict you very much for legitmite uses.

mblphnlvr, yes an MP3 CD does require some hoops to go through to make from music purchased at ITMS. Why not simply burn a music CD instead? You can fit less tracks on each CD, but is that a big deal? Further you are converting from lossy to lossy format, which is not a good thing to do regardless of DRM. If your aunt really has her heart set on making a MP3 CD that is lower quality, but with more songs, create a new thread.

chuckalicious · Mar 23, 2006

Kokopelli said:
chuckalicious there is no need for insulting other members. I happen to disagree with Dan828 on this as well but I don't feel it relfects upon his intelligence.

Normally I'd agree, but that comment really got my back up. Thinking that only stupid or lazy people don't pirate music does suggest his intelligence, and morals, are somewhat lacking.

I suppose he's probably just a kid, but hey, he's still a moron

dan828 · Mar 23, 2006

chuckalicious said:
Dan828. You're a moron. Simple. You claim people who don't pirate music are stupid or lazy. How about being, *gasp* as you say, honest. I have the money, so I can buy the CDs, or the tracks off iTunes. If I don't have the money, I won't buy the CDs, but I certainly won't go out and pirate the music just because I'm either too tight to spend my money on legit purchases or because I don't mind stealing.

Copying music is exactly the same as shoplifting or any other theft, it's just easier. By not buying an artists music, the company that owns the copyright, and who pays the artist, don't get the money. In turn that will reflect on said artists popularity via sales and chart positions, and, as is seen quite often, may affect how they are treated in the future by their record company, lowering the chance of the artist releasing more quality work.

I buy tracks off of iTunes and I haven't found the DRM restrictive in the slightest, I play it on multiple machines, my iPod and the CD player in my car. That's all I want to do with it.

So if the French gov decide that Apple have to make their DRM open to other players, as will MS and anyone else, then I don't blame them for pulling out of France. The French complain about almost everything anyway

And

chuckalicious said:
Normally I'd agree, but that comment really got my back up. Thinking that only stupid or lazy people don't pirate music does suggest his intelligence, and morals, are somewhat lacking.

I suppose he's probably just a kid, but hey, he's still a moron

Read what I posted. I said, that people that want to pirate but can't are stupid and lazy, because it is very easy to do, but that other people are honest and buy their music.

Before you go and calling people names, why not know what you are talking about first? It certainly says quit a lot about your personality that you feel the need to call names first, without even understanding what it was that you read. I never advocated piracy. I was suggesting that DRM only serves to prevent people that legitimately purchase music from using their products, while pirates have it easy. The name calling isn't necessary.

For the others here, we have the reputation buttons for a reason. If you feel that the above behavior isn't appropriate, you can give chuckalicious negative reputation if you think it's deserved.

chuckalicious · Mar 23, 2006

OKay Dan, I'm not going to argue over this, but this line, from your post:

"The people that don't pirate music are either *gasp* honest or just to stupid and lazy to spend the minimal effort it takes to find and illegally download the music that they want."

The way that reads suggests that your'e lazy and/or stupid if you don't pirate music. If you meant "those that want to pirate, but can't" then please post that, and it may have saved this little outburst

Bypassing DRM is not the same as downloading illegally. Bypassing DRM would be burning the track to CD and then re-ripping in another format.

dan828 · Mar 23, 2006

chuckalicious said:
OKay Dan, I'm not going to argue over this, but this line, from your post:

"The people that don't pirate music are either *gasp* honest or just to stupid and lazy to spend the minimal effort it takes to find and illegally download the music that they want."

The way that reads suggests that your'e lazy and/or stupid if you don't pirate music. If you meant "those that want to pirate, but can't" then please post that, and it may have saved this little outburst Bypassing DRM is not the same as downloading illegally. Bypassing DRM would be burning the track to CD and then re-ripping in another format.

Fine, how about asking for clarification then instead of calling someone a moron? There is no reason to behave that way.

chuckalicious · Mar 23, 2006

dan828 said:
Fine, how about asking for clarification then instead of calling someone a moron? There is no reason to behave that way.

Ok folks, we're opening this one up to all of you. Regardless of whether I was out of line or not, how does his original post read?

Does it suggest that anyone who doesn't download music is stupid/lazy, or does it suggest that people who want to pirate DRM'd music but don't know how are stupid?

French lawmakers OK bill to force open iTunes

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