“France’s Assemblé Nationale voted in yesterday evening the DADVSI [Droit d’Auteur et des Droits Voisins dans la Société de l’Information], a rather hideous proposal which will most likely become law when France’s Sénat deems it constitutional and President Chirac signs it. Both of the latter are likely as the president is of the same majority right party (UMP) as the Assemblé Nationale. The New York Times (and Slashdot) have noted incorrectly that the law will contain clauses for interoperability required of iTunes and iPods, but those amendments did not make it into the final proposal voted on Thursday night. Read on for a breakdown of the law as it currently awaits, almost certain, approval,” Fabienne Serriere writes for TUAW. “This new law will forbid an individual from providing information about how to break any protection system, or the use of a technology that breaks a protection system. A quick breakdown of the proposed fee structure for breaking this law [follows].”
• 38 Euros: Fine for downloading a copy written work, per work.
• 150 Euros: Fine for sharing a copy written work with someone else.
• 750 Euros: Fine if you have in your possession and/or use a software that bypasses copyright protection.
• 3,750 Euros: Fine if you write software or provide information about bypassing copyright protection.
• 30,000 Euros and 6 Months in Prison: Penalty for those making available software or technology that bypasses copyright protection.
• 300,000 Euros and up to 3 Years in Prison: Penalty for making available any peer to peer software which “knowingly promotes piracy.”
“All in all the law does not penalize Apple, but with all the open source software available for the Mac platform, it will penalize Apple users,” Serriere writes.
Full article here.
Side-by-side English, French, German and Spanish versions of the DADVSI proposal: http://www.dadvsi.info/
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Related articles:
Apple’s options if French law forcing DRM interoperability passes – March 17, 2006
French law that would force Apple to open iTunes Music Store to non-iPod devices far from settled – March 17, 2006
If passed, French law would force Apple to open iTunes Music Store to non-iPod devices – March 15, 2006
Law that could have forced Apple to open iTunes Music Store to non-iPod devices blocked in France – March 14, 2006
French law would force Apple to open iTunes Music Store to non-iPod devices – March 13, 2006
Not very good traduction. The fine isn’t for downloading or sharing a copy written work (does that even make sense in English ?), but for downloading or sharing illegally a copyrighted work.
@ Tommy Boy : the reason why the French are passing those laws is because they have to implement in their laws the EU directive known as EUCD, which is the European DMCA that the USA has been pushing Europe and the rest of the world to adopt.
The reason why you’ve heard of what was going on in France while never hearing of what went in the other European countries is just because, though they say the country is irrelevant, Americans just can’t take their eyes off of France, love to hate France, and believe that whatever the French are doing it must be in some way against the Americans, or something american, since the French are, as everybody in the (American) world knows, staunch American-haters whose only ambition and only preoccupation is to piss off the US. So, you have journalists, or what passes for journalists today who analyze anything french just to find how it will negatively affect Americans…
I was playing my iTunes music on my iMac. I dont own an iPod anymore (gave it to my GF). Actually the main reason I closed my iTunes account was that they did not provide any Spanish support at all when I had a billing issue (Apple were billing me for tunes I did not purchase). Luckily I speak English but millions in Spain do not, doh! News that support is now going to India and DRM strong arm nonsense are just further proof that I did the right thing.
SJ always said that iTMS was competing with piracy. DRM is a competitive point in favour of piracy.
Big Corporations 100, Consumer 0!
Hey Jimyoin…
Paranoid much?
JOhn – you can LEAVE your FUD comments at the door.
iTunes AAC fiarpllay files can be played on any computer, windows or mac, that supports iTunes as well as any iPod AND two Motorola cell phones (ROKR and SLVR).
Now, if that isn’t enough variety for you, why don’t you go complain to whomever makes the device you want to use iTunes with that they don’t support it. Obviously Apple is willing to license fairplay to Motorola. At the right price, they would no doubt license it to others. Now, since the “others” conprise such a small percentage of the market segment, tey may not be able to meet Apple’s price…but that isn’t Apple being unwilling as much as it is the others just being incapable.
me – Apple is not going to licence at any price. The deal with Moto was so they could test the waters in the phone market while they consider a move into the space.
Again, why would Apple licence FairPlay. It would take away one advantage of buying an iPod, which is of course where they are making most of their money. They don’t run the iTMS out of good will to the record labels you know (they make very little profit on it). It is there to promote the iPod, and it does its job well because it is better than all of the competition.
Tim Coughlin
Why can’t I play iTMS songs on my iRiver?
Why can’t I play AACs in Windows Media Player?
Why can’t I play WMAs in iTunes?
Why can’t I run Windows programs on my Mac? Why can’t I run Mac programs on my PC?
Why can’t I play subscribed music I get from Rhapsody, or songs I get from Wal-Mart on my iPod?
If you don’t like it, don’t get an iPod and don’t use iTunes. WMA is just as bound to Creative or iRiver’s devices as AAC is bound to Apple’s devices.
“BIG CORPORATIONS WINZ THEIR LIK SO GREEDY OMG WE SHULD BE ABLE 2 DO THIS AND THIS AND THIS BIG CORPORATIONS 1000000000000000000000000 CONSUMER 0!!!!!!”
You have four options.
1) Get a CD player and pay for overpriced CDs.
2) Stop listening to music.
3) Listen to dinosaur industrial radio and hear nothing that you want to.
4) Bypass FairPlay and do something that makes you might as well just illegally download because it’s just as illegal.
And, as “me” said, Apple may not be to blame. Windows Media Player and other devices are just as incapable of playing a proprietary format as iTunes and iPod is.
Apple is the market leader and in the best position to actually do something that would benefit consumers – instead they try and out-Microsoft Microsoft! They are no different. Their products are just ( a lot) better.
Copy written?
John, they are different. Apple has done nothing anti-competitive with the iTMS which is how M$ got where they are today. The music labels required them to include DRM. Did you think Apple would go to Microsoft for this? They created their own. And now, because Apple’s products are the best, they own the market. People have every option not to by an iPod and so use the other options available to them.
“Americans just can’t take their eyes off of France”
Is it Americans who can’t take their eyes off France, or is it the American media jamming French news into everyone’s face?
Like Michael Jackson and American celebrity gossip, there are things nobody wants to hear about, yet nobody can escape. It’s like a black hole, you WILL be sucked in.
Tim, people have every option not buying Windows too. Format lockins are always anti-competitive because people tend to gravitate round a “winning” format, leaving all other players in the cold. Closed formats create a winner and many loosers.
I fail to see the link between this law and Open Source software. Anyone care to explain?
The proposals in France were about making it legal to circumvent the DRM in iTMS tracks… effectively making them playable on any device. Open. Not proprietary lock ins.
Still an inapplicable law!
Remember Chirac was a friend of Saddam Hussein. USA too… And both loved the dictatorships!
2007 is, means prison for Chirac. He also thinks that France is a country isolated from the world.
Hola JOHN,
I sympathise with your support issues. I worked in the training department for a global IT department fo a few years, and supporting implementations to all the countries of the world with all their languages was very difficult. However, Spanish is the second most common first language in the world – one place ahead of english! So your story is a bit concerning.
He estado aprendiendo el español por 2 años en Sydney, Australia. Mi profesora, por lecciones privadas, es de Buenos Aires. Entonces, apprendo el español de argentina. Pero, pienso que la methodoligia de todo el mundo en esta…
…interoperability debate are missing the point. It’s really one of conceptualization. The real issue to be decided, which determines which side is right is…
is Apple entitled to market iTunes Store / iTunes software / iPod as one superior commodity or system? Or are they only entitled to market and sell each one of those components as separate commodities in the market? If one can resolve this deeper issue, there actually is no debate, is my opinion. The answer to the “debate” is a function of the answer to these questions.
I for one think they are entitled to market their system the way they do. There are many other online music stores where anyone can buy the same music, and there are many competor players that will play that music.
So Apple is in no way anti-competitive or monopolistic in any legal or economic definition of those terms. It is just the choice people are making because of Apple’s their superior system. So why shouldn’t they be allowed to market their system that way without any criticism? If the consumer doesn’t want Apple’s superior “system” he/she can choose to buy a range of competitor “components” and build their own inferior system.
So what’s to complain about? IMHO
Didn’t Steve Jobs say “There’s plenty of choice in the market, they’re just not happy about the choices people are making”, in regards to this issue? I wish I had a book of Steve to consult.
The only reason anyone cares is because it’s successful and they want in on the action. Only thing is, since its inception they have been trying to kill it any way they can, only now realizing they can use the “consumer choice” issue to tunnel in.
Apple designed it, built it, grew it, continues to improve it, and it’s Apple’s entity, imho. And, I assume, legally.
If mIcrosoft owned the iPod and had iTunes you all would be screaming monopoly.
That’s a mighty big If, Hal.
I would be screaming monopoly only if MS used their Windows monopoly to force their hardware partners to only include the MS player software (which only works with MS-sponsored devices) and not bundle other companies’ music player software on the PCs.
But you know what, no hardware partner except HP bundled iTunes (and only for a little while). And it didn’t matter. Despite people owning PCs, they chose the iPod and iTunes.
“If mIcrosoft owned the iPod and had iTunes you all would be screaming monopoly.”
Of course.
Microsoft would make retailers sign exclusive deals where they could only sell the Microsoft ‘iPod” and no one elses. And if you used Microsoft’s “iTunes,” it would delete all other music players from your computer. Then when you deleted Microsoft’s “iTunes,” you would loose your conection to the internet.
That’s what an illegal monopoly looks like.
JOhn,
Rip your iTunes to a CD and then import into your crappy mp3 player in whatever frikken format you want.
Dork.