By Elinor Mills, 23 March 2006 09:05
NEWS
A proposed French law that would force Apple to make the songs it sells through its iTunes music store playable on devices that compete with its own iPod amounts to "state-sponsored piracy", Apple said on Wednesday.
France's lower house of parliament passed a law on 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.
Apple said in a statement: "The French implementation of the EU Copyright Directive will result in state-sponsored piracy. If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers. iPod sales will likely increase as users freely load their iPods with 'interoperable' music which cannot be adequately protected. Free movies for iPods should not be far behind in what will rapidly become a state-sponsored culture of piracy."
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 (DRM) 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.
He wrote: "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. While this sounds like a drastic move, we believe it would not materially impact business. We estimate that approximately 20 per cent of iPod and iTunes sales occur outside of the US. The French market alone is likely less than two per cent of iPod and iTunes business."
An Apple spokesman said he could not comment on what action Apple might take if the measure becomes law in France.
CNET News.com's Ina Fried contributed to this report
Elinor Mills writes for CNET News.com
Comments
There are 3 comments. Join the discussion
1. Ian Sargent
When I bought a vinyl record it played on any record player. When I bought a music cassette it played on any cassette player. When I buy CDs they play on any CD player.
Why should Apple think that buying a digital music track be any different?
2. Gianni Aimone Tullio
Will this apply universally accross the EU or just France? How about other media? I wish to publish apps to mobile phones with Adobe Macromedia Flash, but costs £8 license for each mobile phone (locked to its IMEI No.). Will this form of DRM C.R.A.P. (Content Restriction Annulment and Protection) be legal in France or the EU now?
Gianni
3. Simon
Ian Sargent misses the point. Yes, we could play our vinyl, cassettes, and CDs on any player, but now the technology exists to stop us doing such heinous crimes !
It is not in the interests of the vendors to allow us to play our music where/when/on what WE want to - their business model is built on restricting us to using what THEY choose to allow to use. Just as importantly it's about locking out the competition - hence Apple and MS mutually refusing to swap methods.
Apples latest outburst is a pile of complete c**p. Licensing will not suddenly create a rush of pirating - it will probably reduce the incentive if people can buy the tracks they want, from the supplier of their choice, and play them on the device of their choice. Since no single vendor offers every artist, the only outcome would be that the consumer gets more choice. But consumer choice is not what DRM is about, it's about consumer control !
Personally, I absolutely refuse to purchase online. I will continue to go out and buy the CD, then rip it myself. That way I have a hard copy backup, and I know I'm not forever tied to using Apple approved playback methods.
If (or more likely, when) they come up with a DRM protected successor to CDs, then I'll simply stop buying music if I won't get my "fair use" from it.