“So France doesn’t like the idea that Apple and the iPod and iTunes are intertwined with a proprietary structure that has no way for any other player/music download service to compete. The French say that Apple must either open the kimono, as it were, or be banned. Apple thinks it may as well walk away from France,” John C. Dvorak writes for PC Magazine. “Screw those French!”
“The French are also skeptical about the whole movie-piracy phenomenon. Why should illegally downloading the equivalent of a $19 disc result in a $250,000 fine and 5 years in prison? Shoplifting a $100 item from a store—which is tangible and real—has fewer consequences. Does this make any sense to anyone? The French don’t think so. Illegally copying movies or downloading should be like a traffic ticket—perhaps a $100 fine. Now they are being accused of ‘encouraging’ piracy. How’s that? $100 is a lot of money,” Dvorak writes. “The American tendency to prioritize poorly seems to be thematic. It took yet another new twist when a get-tough stance against Wi-Fi poaching cropped up in Illinois. Yes, forget burglary, where someone steals something tangible. Instead, we need to bust Wi-Fi poachers… Law enforcement should not be wasting the taxpayers’ money looking inside every car where they see some guy sitting reading a newspaper, in hopes of finding a Wi-Fi poacher… I’m moving to France.”
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Alan” for the heads up.]
MacDailyNews Take: France’s idea of making the penalty fit the crime might be sound, but the proposed law would unfairly penalize the one company that worked and built their business to market dominating levels while also rewarding all of the also-rans for failure. We can see how that idea might sound good to a socialist in France, but it hardly strikes us as a good deal for Apple. What is the impetus to create successful businesses in France, if the government makes a habit of throwing all of your hard work out the window to the benefit of those who couldn’t compete on a level playing field? Apple should pull the plug on France if the proposed law ever actually does get enacted as written today.
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Related articles:
Will Apple’s Steve Jobs bid France adieu? – March 22, 2006
Wired’s Kahney: Proposed French copyright protection law a good thing for consumers in the long run – March 22, 2006
Apple calls proposed French DRM law ‘state-sponsored piracy,’ predicts iPod sales increase – March 21, 2006
French National Assembly approves digital copyright bill; could affect Apple’s FairPlay DRM – March 21, 2006
I don’t really get what all the fuss is about. I’m sure the only reason itunes has DRM on it is to satisfy the stupid record companies. itunes will still be used by everyone as it’s (a) the best and (b) works the best with ipods that everyone’s got.
Pull the plug on Frace
France lol didn’t get much sleep
SCREW THE FRENCH!!!! TERRORIST LOVERS!!!!!
Dvorak is a three strike looser. He is biased, somewhat clueless (or he makes it seem so) and has no journalistic integrity at all (ie a yellow journalist in that he will write anything inflammatory, true or not, just to attract attention to his otherwise dull, lifeless and virtually useless column.)
Considering his history, why does anyone put any value or weight on anything he writes?
MW income… how do they do that?
dvorak is right on with this….btw, he doesn’t express any opinion on the substance of the proposed French law vis-a-vis Apple, so no need to “go there” …
I also have never figured out the “record label” economics of the “value” placed on the illegal download either; given that the labels will “give away” access to their entire catalog for a subscription fee of $10 per month, but yet scream that $.99 per track/$9.99 isn’t enough for a non-subscription service.
Dvorak = Charlie Brown’s Parent.
waa waaaaah waa waaaa waaaaa
“What is the impetus to create successful businesses in France, if the government makes a habit of throwing all of your hard work out the window to the benefit of those who couldn’t compete on a level playing field?”
I don’t see any the editors of this site complaining when The European Union goes after Microsoft. Why should Microsoft pull WMP out of XP?
SCREW LOUISIANA!!! TERRORIST LOVERS!!!!! SCREW CANADA!!!! TERRORIST LOVERS!!!! SCREW GERMANY!!!! SCREW EUROPE!!! SCREW TEH WORLD!!!! TERRORIST LOVERS!!!!
Yeah! Dvorak is moving to France! I hope he takes MacDude, Macaholic (spell that right?), the guy who is so lame they sometimes post as “me” too, and the OTHERS with him!
Seriously, Dvorak may be right that the fine for a single stolen digital track is way out of whack considering the fines fro physical theft, but law enforcement isn’t busting the low volume user, they are busting the distributors and those fines really add up so the plea bargain still has some weight.
Screw G Spank … Terrorist Lover
His point seems quite valid to me
The French idiots need to work harder for living. Apple worked harder and faster than anybody else to create and invent methods for making our lives easier whether it be just a simple computer user interface or the way we listen and buy entertainment, news, opinions, movies, etc.
They want to make everyone and everything (i.e. MP3 players) ‘equal’ with a stupid socialist policy. Of course they do! Because they haven’t made or thought of anything worth a damn for the last 100 years…
They don’t want Apple….a prototypical American rebel….taking over their entertainment/media industry. Fine, impose an iPod tax, break open their DRM, ban English, and connive to be a US counterweight.
Apple doesn’t need you, US doesn’t need you…you are historically, geopolitically and economically irrelevant. Dvorak can immigrate to France, sip a glass of Beaudox, listen to his iRiver (music via iTunes), and ponder about the future of DRM and OSes, while Apple keeps on cranking stuff (because I have no idea what they have in their little bag) out to the world…not to sell and make money, but to change the world!!!!
aa,
MS is a convicted monopoly abuser, Apple is not. And that makes all the difference in the world.
It’s not illegal to build a monopoly in the U.S. It’s illegal to abuse a monopoly.
Pulling the plug on France is probably not the best idea for Apple in this situation. If Apple withdraws from France then a weakness to the iPod/iTunes homogeony has been found and can easily be exploited. If Apple’s answer to this problem is to withdraw, then other countries-the US included-can pass similar laws. If they do, Apple will withdraw from those countries and that would effectively remove iTunes from the game. Of course, all the piss poor also-rans with their complicted and narrow minded Microsoft-thinking will think this is great but it would be a TERRIBLE loss for the consumer. We Mac users in our utopia would have no access to these alternate services (as if we’d ever want them anyway), they’d be overly complicated-as all Microsoft-centric services are-and the world would be that must less of a blissful place because of it.
Apple, please find a good solution…don’t withdraw. Buy France, toss the bill, pass a new bill which makes all non-Apple computers illeagle to use and posess (under penalty of death), and start the wave of a more happy Apple-centric life.
MDN Magic Word “required” as in Apple should not be required to open their service when they’re not abusing their position.
I don’t know, maybe its just me, but wouldn’t Microsoft have to open up their DRM also. Actually, doesn’t the french law basically say that all music has to be in mp3 format, or such???
N.
There is a point here. The punishment should fit the crime. So, if I make a copy of a really good film and keep it on my hard drive I could face a quarter of a million dollar fine and five years in jail. What a country! The corporations are in control because the lobbyists rule the roost in Washington D.C. The idea that creative content and copyrighted content should be protected (a good idea) is pushed too far. What ever happened to fair use of content?
My fear is that someone will break in and steal my computer and hard drives. I know I would never see all my precious files again. The burglars remain a threat and little is done to catch them.
This reminds me of my days as a youth in what was becoming Silicon Valley. If you smoked pot the government was not your friend. Personal freedom was something pursued in the face of government control. Possession of pot was a felony. Thank God I never got caught. (Now I know it was pot which was not my friend, but that is another matter.)
The punishment should fit the crime.
MDN writes: “it hardly strikes us as a good deal for Apple.”
This is exactly what’s wrong with MDN’s take: Where is the concern for customers and consumers?
Apple is a multinational corporation, and what’s good for Apple is not necessarily good for customers and consumers.
MDN makes money from advertising, which comes from corporations. But MDN should never forget that real live people are the ones who actually buy and use the products, and it is their interests that should be front and center when governments make public policy.
It cheapens our democracy for it to be any other way.
Stripping the DRM from itunes does in no way harm Apple. Ipods account for 70% of the market itunes almost definitely accounts for the same in downloads. Why would anyone swap to use a store for the same song at the same (or higher) price and that’s harder to use? Are we all gonna rush to Napster? Hell no! And where does Apple make the money? It’s not itunes.
This whole motion helps the consumer and stops record companies enforcing limits on us that shouldn’t be there. If I buy a CD, I can do with it as I wish. If I download a song from itunes, I am limited by DRM. This isn’t anti Apple, it’s anti backward thinking record companies
Like it or not each country has the right to set it’s own laws. If you live there and don’t like the laws, apply for emigration. Or vote the politicians out. If you do business there you have the choice of not doing business there. [I am amazed at the number of companies compromising their ethics to trade in China and never consider NOT doing business in China. I guess Money > Ethics]
Apple have an easy way to comply with this law:
if you have a French credit card registered when you buy songs from the iTMS then iTunes should allow purchased songs to “Convert selection to MP3” under the Advanced menu. It’s probably a one line change (turn off one check) and does the same as burning and re-importing a CD-ROM.
It’s not about compatability, because users can burn a cd-rw and the music is free from DRM.
It’s about the EU economic block agains the American economic block.
There is a lot of anti-American rethoric being drummed up in the EU.
And of course it stated with the French like before, now it’s economic. Microsoft and Apple are American companies.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,17129-2106588,00.html
Fsck the Smurfs. Little Blue Terrorist lovers.
Proponents of breaking DRM usually make up most (if not all) of the illegal downloaders. Normal people are happy with the iTunes/iPod combination.
The French should stick to making wine not whine. Seriously, This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard. If you don’t like iTunes/iPod buy something else. I mean WTF? Go buy a subscription service and waste half your life uploading it to your Craztive Zen. But just go away.
I think that any proprietary patents owned by French companies should be destroyed and their proprietary ideas, technology and processes should be given away to anyone in the spirit of fair play.
Viva La Bumba Heads.
Fsck Republicans. Terrorist lovers.
Alos, the point is that where France goes Europe follows… so I would not be so quick to antagonize the French.
Hmmm. Don’t remember all this sympathy towards the “company that worked and built their business to market dominating levels” when the EU forced MS to sell Windows without Media Player.
Oh. That’s right. That was to the benefit of Apple and iTunes (the “also-ran” in this case…), so it must be the correct decision.
Gotcha.
license fairplay to other stores (not hardware vendors). ipod+itunes will still grow.
France’s idea of making the penalty fit the crime might be sound
Is their solution sound?
On person downloads a movie and shares it with a neighbor, or two. They in turn share it with a friend, or two. Before long that single download has been shared with a couple dozen (hundred?) others.
Illegal downloads are not like shoplifting a pair of $100 tennis shoes. The shoes cannot be duplicated. The download can be duplicated hundreds of times, without degrading the quality of the download.
Nobody is thinking this through, least of all the French.
Okay G Spank we get the message. You can go and have a lie down now.
BTW three cheers for France, Denmark and Norway (one each). DRM shouldn’t be used for vendor lock-in.
I don’t want Apple to turn into Microsoft by shitting on the competition. It’s time they licensed Fairplay.
As I keep saying, if Creative’s crappy efforts were iTunes compatible, would you buy one? Of course you wouldn’t, and neither would anyone else.
“Proponents of breaking DRM usually make up most (if not all) of the illegal downloaders. Normal people are happy with the iTunes/iPod combination.”
I don’t agree. I believe there are a large portion that simply want to operate in what used to be considered “fair use”. “Normal people” want to be able to use the track for their own use however they want. Now, I understand that in the current IP laws, the content providers are within their rights in using DRM and restricting a consumer’s use. However, there are many people that don’t want to share their music with the world, just not have restrictions on their own personal use of that music. Many of them are not tech-savvy enough to know that, with iTMS music at least, they can strip the DRM by burning to CD.
Actual pirates, the ones that share huge amounts of music with millions of people, are tech savy enough to get around DRM anyway. Many niche music stores understand this and provide legal downloads without DRM.
For Apple, what really keeps iPod/iTMS going is not because consumers are suupposedly “locked in” by DRM. It’s that it has the best ease of use, the player is the best, and the vast majority of people can plug the iPod in and have it work. No having to determine if your player needs drivers or firmware updates, whether that player is compatible with that particular package from a store, no having to move music from one folder to another. This is true with or without DRM.
I’m all for protecting the earning power of artists. I just think DRM only blocks people that, by and large, wouldn’t violate the copyright while real piratesare not affected.
I just don’t get why Apple doesn’t license Fairplay. If they do, the following things would (imo) happen:
* FP becomes the de-facto DRM standard, and Apple gets a chunk of every FP-song sold, even if it’s not sold on iTMS
* the iPod *still* dominates the hardware market, because it’s the best player out there. Don’t forget, shitloads of people *don’t* buy music from iTMS (like me), and still wouldn’t buy any player other than the iPod.
* iTMS still dominates the download market, because it was first to market, and is the best in the market.
* Consumers are happy, because they then know, just like with a record, CD or DVD, that you can play the song on almost all hardware devices.
I simply fail to see a downside here for Apple.
aa wrote: ” “What is the impetus to create successful businesses in France, if the government makes a habit of throwing all of your hard work out the window to the benefit of those who couldn’t compete on a level playing field?”
I don’t see any the editors of this site complaining when The European Union goes after Microsoft. Why should Microsoft pull WMP out of XP?”
aa,
Microsoft has been commited of abusing it’s monopoly. They are using their market force in one area to force their way into another market. They used the dominance of Windows to force computer manufacturers to put Internet Explorer onto everyone’s computers and pushed Netscape out of existence. They are trying to force their Media Player on everyone from their market dominance in the same way.
Apple is not forcing anyone to do anything. If you choose to buy an iPod, then you get software to synchronize your songs between your computer and your iPod. You can get iTunes separately. You can buy your songs from iTMS or buy a CD. They have developed a way to encrypt songs that the RIAA is happy with that allows them to sell songs that can be played on a computer or an iPod. You can use the iTMS on a PC without even owning an iPod, but have never forced anyone to bundle iTunes. They are in no way abusing a monopoly.
Microsoft on the other hand is abusing their monopoly. Microsoft is not playing on a level playing field since they pushed harware manufacturers to bundle Media Player through their OS – not related. Apple has sold a MP3 player with software that allows you to download songs to iPod. They are related pieces and they are not forcing anyone else to bundle the pieces together.
Penalty is right but the law is totally WRONG! Apple should have the right to it’s own intellectual property which it invented and created by the demands of the music industry no less. So when does porsche give up it’s intellectual property so everyone can drive a car equal to a porsche made buy Hyundai. This is an anti-competative law for a communist state.
Yes if they make this into law Apple should pull the plug. This is truely a law to promote piracy maybe not of the music but of Apple’s own patented inventions and property it solely developed and marketed.
french = cheese loving surrender monkeys!!
Quevar
Your post drives to the heart of everyone’s misunderstanding of the French action. This is NOT France vs. Apple. It is France trying to ensure that 10 years on, the digital music industry is not in the same position that the software industry is currently in, where one company can effectively dictate what the standard is and everyone else has to follow.
Imagine for a moment what happens if Apple doesn’t hold it’s leading position and Microsoft becomes that dominant force? Are you still against the French law now?
Apple will never walk away from France for 2 reasons.
1 – France is a big market for the Macintosh. Without iTunes store/iPod Apple may lose sales and potential switchers.
2 – Today the number of countries that make suitable iTunes store targets is actually pretty small. By withdrawing from France Apple will concede the market to crappy MS Windows devices. Those other companies can then use their “success” in France to compete against Apple or perhaps persuade other countries to adopt similar laws.
I have to believe that Apple knew about this and that it has a plan for managing this situation.
Stay tuned
If somebody starts to give free beer away, I expect MDN’s to come to the rescue of the beer compannies who worked so hard to build the business.
God the world has changed. Does anyone see a problem here?
I managed to fit my 60GB iPod into my Rectum. Just a litle vasoline applied to the insertion end of the iPod helped it slide right in.
The problem is that MDN=Apple.
this is what i responded to the article about the danes taking the same path as the french:
—
nice!
will this also mean that from now on:
1. the danish state only will make public websites and services compliant to W3 standards so ALL platforms can access them? not limited to windows only anymore????
2. i can get EVERY piece of software i want to run on my Mac? even the windows only apps?
3a. i can play every game i like on every game-station, Mac or PC?
3b. i also can borrow Mac titles through the library… not the windows only versions as most often is the status quo today…???
4. i can access every bank from every platform i like? without special devices and with the same convenience as PC users?
5. i can see the clips the danish broadcasters have on their website through QuickTime or any other player i like? not limited to Windows Media, as currently is the case?
6. i can see web-TV and hear web-radio from the main broadcasters on my Mac through any player i choose?
7. i can buy every car i like for the same price the rest of europe pays for it???? not triple the price as is now: 180% tax and 25% VAT on top of it all….
8. i can pay the same taxes as the rest of the european union?
9. being a designer and an architect – my IP rights (copyright etc.) is going to be as well protected as the the music/film/software business????????????????? because this is clearly NOT the case at the moment in Denmark!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
10. my 4 kids will have access to a Mac at school (other than the four Lampshade iMacs they have reserved for video-projects-only in iMovie!) as they have at home and not be forced to be bothered with MS Windows anymore????
well… i think not.
fscking sad stupid socialistic danes… they will never learn.
and this Brian Mikkelsen guy is supposed to be more liberal???
NOT.
Is Dvorak French? May be it will sound better if you take the v and the a out.
“What is the impetus to create successful businesses in France, if the government makes a habit of throwing all of your hard work out the window to the benefit of those who couldn’t compete on a level playing field?”
Sorry MDN, that logic just doesn’t work. Apple’s “hard work” was the creation of good software, good hardware, and good integration. Apple’s “hard work” is not FairPlay. France is not throwing out any of Apple’s actual hard work or what it is that makes Apple better than the competition. If you honestly think that DRM is what makes a company great, then you’re more delusional than I thought. Do you actually think that Apple products are not as good without the DRM?
i may not be a fan of the french for many reasons but i trust their integrity vis a vis the rights of the people over the rights of grasping organisations; i am not sure i would say the same of the States at the moment.
I bought an ipod many years ago not because of itunes but becuase i wanted to have my music on something better than a walkman: i dont think most people buy ipods for itunes….
DRM is probably wrong, we could always do what we wanted in the past (make tapes, copy Cds )and the record companies stayed rich and the stars overpaid.
I think companys should spend their time combating piracy but with reasonable fines and if they charge a decent amount per tune will find on the whole people will pay.
The ipod and itunes will always be succesful if they stay the best, unlike the mac which before never had the critical mass of the ipod today in the publics conception. i think its a real shame that now vista has slipped OSx will still not benefit a whole lot except in the La la land of our mac world where we constantly say ‘ah what if and wouldn’t it be great if……”
hey ho
Realist
Thank you, finally a sane person in this board
Get rid of DRM. The only reason DRM exists is to satisfy the RIAA.
The ease of use and the interlinking of the iPod/iTunes is what sells; not DRM.
BTW, what would Apple gain from licensing Fairplay? The music, in order to synch with the iPod, would need to be imported into iTunes. If all DRM vanished, Apple would be in an even more powerful position due to the linkage of iPod/iTunes.
Aah France…
Home of the 30-hour “work” week and the 8-week paid vacation. Aren’t these the same lot who riot over a law allowing employers to fire people? Tell again why we care what they’re doing?
I believe this law will go away, when Apple and/or MS explain to record labels that opening DRM to competition is same as disabling DRM. Once the key to DRM is released to public as required by the law, DRM/Fairplay and DRM/WMP become just another encoding format like MP3 and AAC. Do they think MP3 player manufactures won’t produce MP3 players and music playback software that totally ignores DRM rules? Look for all region DVD players. The region codes on DVD did not work. DRM algorithm released to public won’t work either. DRM only works, because it is based on “security by obscurity.”
Realist & DBS:
I’m with you on this too. The proposed law [for it has still to pass the senate unaltered] is about DRM not about Apple’s intellectual property.
yet another Mark:
WRONG! Obviously never lived in France have you? The French working week is [on average] 35 hours not 30. And where did you pull the ‘8-week paid vacation’ idea from… out of your ass?? Paid vacation in France is an average of 5 weeks [and 6 weeks for long-term employees, usually civil servants]. Incidentally, that’s pretty much the same in the UK too… one of our ‘allies’!
The law they are ‘rioting over’ is NOT a law yet [jeez, don’t you bigots ever read the whole article?] And if it becomes a law it will allow an employer to fire anyone under the age of 26 for upto 2 years after starting – giving no reason or explanation. [How old are you, BTW?] The law has been proposed by Dominique de Villepin, a right-wing appointee of the Gaullist President Chirac [also right-wing]. By right-wing, I mean conservative [or in American terms, Republican]. Geddit yet?
I don’t really care what they do, but please just “shave your arm pits” stinky!!
It is about the money. As usual. Today I can check a DVD out of a library (tax dollars paid for it), rent it from a shop (it gets rented over and over again, but was paid for once), or get it from Netflix (again one purchase).
The corps. would like to change this. They would like us each have to purchase our view of the film. They would not even like us to have a copy to watch again without paying again.
Steve is trying to hold a reasonable middle ground. Seven players and a reasonable price. The reasonable price is a big part of why iTunes works. It is not worth the effort to get the song or the movie in another way. And seven players are enough for most anyone. Were it not for Steve’s stubborn insistance on the low price iTunes would not have 70% of the market and bootlegging would be the norm.
Greed knows no bounds. People will fight for their wealth and for more wealth, even if it kills them.
In France the populace in not asleep. They vote. They elect persons who look out for them. The corporations do not rule through lobbyists while the people sleep.
This is potentially a win-win for Apple and us consumers.
Honestly, how many of you use iTMS and an iPod “BECAUSE” of its DRM? I didn’t get my Pods because it. If Apple removed DRM tomorrow I’m not going to throw away my two iPods and run out to get an iRiver.
How many of you are just waiting for the removal of DRM at iTMS so you can get an iRiver or a Sony MXDVC-1000002548762ABC?
I see this as helping Apple but probably hurting the other music services.
Those of us that have iPods will continue to use iTMS, and those foolish enough to have another player can now also use iTMS without the hassle of burning a disk and re-importing etc. This will hurt Napster et al I think.
If another music site has a song that I want that’s not on iTMS I’ll be able to buy that and easily get it on my iPod.
What’s wrong with that?
Hey, G Spank,
All of the 911 terrorists were in the USA legally.
Who are the terrorist lovers?
Who let the terrorists in?
In France the government is not socialist, in any way.
and the proposition of “interoperability” is just like waporware.
Because in december the french parliement voted “global license” but the record label didn’t agree so it was remove from the final law.
Its not France to blame but Major whose are Americain minus Vivendu Universal
What’s a MS ad doing on MDN?
http://straightdope.com/classics/a1_394
Forgive the US…terrorists plain and simple.
Ignoring the French bashing, Dvorak is right on a number of counts and plain wrong on others.
The punishment should fit the offence. If my boy downloads a video the authorities might like to issue a warning for a first offence and a ‘ticket’ for $50 if he persisted. If however the authorities discove a CD factory producing 10,000s then they could expect $ 50×10,000s in fines.
France has every right to insist on open DRM for the hardware sold in France – just as they can restrict any other sales – within EU rules ( not that the latter usually limits their national view).
Equally Apple can refuse to divulge its DRM system which would allow evry Korean/Chinnese manufacturer to offer hardware compatible with iTunes and thus kill Apple’s hardware business by under-cutting them. Apple did this before when the licenced MAC OS to third parties and it near killed their business.
The French population, if disbarred by their own government from buying iPods from French stores can then either buy them abroad or vote against the policy makers when the elections come around – its a process called democracy.