If there was such desire it would be ridiculous but you are very bad informed, the French do not desire to get rid of DRM, they just want IBNTEROPERRABLE DRM’s so One company cannot lock an entire market, controlling content distribution and content play devices like Apple is doinf right now.

Apple know this has nothing to do with piracy, it’s just anti monopolistic law, you know, good for consumers, good for indistry…

If you bash the French, knwo what you talk about next time.

I’m quite confident that the only reason that most people put up with Apple’s DRM is because they don’t know of the consequences when things go wrong. And it’s not hard to discover those consequences. If someone, or someone they know gets bitten by DRM problems, DRM’s iConvenience suddenly stops being a feature.

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/03/21/francewilllet_msft.html

Many of you still think that iPod owners buying from another Fairplay store won’t complain to Apple about song problems, or ditch legal downloads altogether for mp3s. I don’t agree and neither does Apple. (And I think this is completely different from the issue with Office file formats because there is no third party involved who owns the stuff like music labels or movie studios.)

As I said before, spend your energy making laws that forbid DRM, or create and mandate a single DRM standard for everyone, but don’t do this interoperability junk. Oops, repeating myself.

But I’m tired. Everyone knows but ignores the fact that Apple makes pennies off of each song sold, and it’s the labels who reap the profit. So my last point is this for those who cynically think Apple’s statement was meant to just protect the iTMS (rather than as a warning to the labels):

1. If Apple shut down selling music on iTMS tomorrow worldwide, which music player do you think would sell the most for at least the next five years? Or if there were a single DRM standard for every music download store and player in the world, which music player do you think would sell the most?
2. Where will all those iPod owners get music to put on their iPods (besides eMusic and ripping CDs)?
3. Will there be more piracy or less?

A part of me hopes Apple shuts down iTMS before ever agreeing to interoperability just to prove that they are right.

But here we’re just talking about music formats and music players. The lawmakers in France were not just thinking about this online music market.
They were thinking about the future generation of office software that will include DRM. They were thinking about the possible generalization of DRM to whatever field it will be technically possible to extend it to (and I don’t think it’s a pessimistic vision).

So they thought, before we write in the law that it is forbidden to go through a DRM (3 years in jail, 300K euros), we should make sure that it won’t backfire. So they took two measures:
- government and public institutions can do it for security reasons
- software developpers can do it for interoperability reasons.

And it remains forbidden to crack DRMs for any other reason (including making copies if I’m not mistaken… even if the law isn’t 100% clear on that one, I think the judges will rule so), forbidden to publish software with such intentions, etc.
So DVD Shrink will be illegal when this law is enabled.
But VLC will remain legal because it only allows people to read the content.

PS: I’m not defending microsoft over apple or anything like that. I think microsoft is pretty worried as well. Maybe not about WMA DRM, but about WMV10, Office file formats, etc.

Seriously, there is player and music store choice in the WMA world because Microsoft is willing to license its DRM to anyone (I assume, for a small fee). If you don’t like your Creative player, you can buy one from Samsung or iRiver or Dell, etc. If you don’t like Napster, you can use URGE, or Virgin, or Walmart, etc. Why is this not a real choice?

You seem to insist that choice must include the ability to change digital music formats – from WMA to Ogg Vorbis or FLAC or MP3. I’ll think about it some more but right now, I don’t think that’s reasonable to insist on.

Gotta go. I’ll respond to the other points later.

@ mark:
iPod/iTunes/iTMS is a lock-in, yet it’s convenient.
WMA players/WMP/WMA stores is another lock-in (you seem to think that I said otherwise… but every single DRM system is a lock-in), and it’s not as convenient.
So people are massively (in the US) choosing the first one. Not so massively so in France, but it’s pretty successful as well.

So now we make a low that says “ok, those convenient all-in-one systems can stay as they are, but we’ll try to provide a way for consumers not to be locked in, just in case they want to choose something else, or want to buy songs on iTMS or a WMA store and play it on other software (and possibly devices)”.
What’s the big problem about that?
Apple is not required to play WMA.
Microsoft is not required to play FairPlay AAC.

Answer to one of your questions:
The law does not require Apple or Microsoft to licence their DRM system for free, or even to licence it at all.
Interoperability as defined in the law does not mean that anyone should be able to produce/sell Fairplay or WMA DRM. It only means that software developpers and device makers should be able to PLAY those formats

The text of amendment 143 to the DADVSI bill (article 7) can be read here, but it’s french only:
http://notreconstitution.net/index.php/DADVSI/AmendementsAN/Amendement143

« IF THE CONSUMER EXPERIENCE IN THE WMA WORLD OF CHOICE WAS BETTER, THEY WOULDN’T GET TROUNCED BY THE APPLE WORLD OF IPOD ONLY!!! »
Who said there was a WMA world of choice in the first place? Just WMA (even with 10 or 100 stores) is no choice. What amounts to a real choice is Fairplay WMA standard mp3 open formats such as Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, etc., as long as these formats can interoperate up to a reasonable (minimal?) level.

“When was the last time you were able to get your money back for the preloaded Windows on the PC you juse purchased ?”

You are aware, of course, that you can easily buy PCs without Windows? You do know that there’s more than one supplier of PCs – unlike in the Apple world, where even if you didn’t want to run Mac OS X on your MacBook, you’d have to pay for it?

“You can ask for your online library to be stored to MP3 locally.”

I’m not even sure what you’re talking about here: it certainly isn’t AAC-DRM’d files bought ffrom the iTunes store, which is what we’re talking about. If you’re going to call someone “insane”, I find it’s often best to know what you’re talking about first.

Mark:

“People just don’t realize how incredibly difficult it is to have created the iPod/iTunes/iTMS experience. Sony, which understands the concept experience, tried to create a complete system like Apple, but failed miserably in implementation.”

And there is nothing to stop Apple licensing some or all of their technology to third parties. What would Apple stand to lose if it licensed FairPlay to (say) Real, so that songs sold on Real’s store could be compatible with the iPod? Apple wouldn’t be responsible for content sold by Real, if Real somehow messed it up, just as Microsoft isn’t responsible for all the crap that Windows vendors tend to put on new PCs (Sony, I’m looking at YOU).

So what’s stopping Apple doing so? Simple: it would remove some of the competitive advantage that the company has for iTunes Music Store. It would mean that iPod owners who want to buy their music in digital form without buying a CD (a small but increasing segment of the music market) would be able to do so without giving Apple additional money. That is tying, and when you have a monopoly, it’s also illegal.

There are no technical reasons why Apple doesn’t license FairPlay. It boils down to money, not technology. You might not have a problem with people using their market position to do this kind of thing, in which case, fair enough. But pretending that it’s down to technology is as silly as Microsoft’s argument that it couldn’t debundle Internet Explorer as it was “a part of the OS” was.

http://standblog.org/blog/2006/03/23/93114717-french-law-copyright-our-digital-future-and-the-ipod

I have personally spent quite a few hours working on this law and met several times with governments officials in order to explain the negative impact of their plans on Open Source Software.

It’s better to choose instead to:
A. Get rid of DRM altogether, or
B. Mandate a single standard for everyone who wants to play.

There was no choice possible, this is an implementation of the european directive named EUCD which comes from a WIPO treaty. The treaty is ten year old and state:

“Contracting Parties shall provide adequate legal protection and effective legal remedies against the circumvention of effective technological measures…”
http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/wct/trtdocswo033.html#P8712240

The choice was already made: protect DRMs, very very bad intention.
But our parlementarian manage to play a trick to the wipo. Ok we protect DRM but we also protect interoperability… Both concept oppose each other, DRM can’t be effective if they are interoperable.

But this stuff on interoperability is just one article out of 30. The rest of the law is very bad.
- The right to the private copy (fair use) is threatened.
- Educational use of copyright material in classs is threatened.
- Library are threatened (they can’t index protected content, they’re not allowed to make copies to lend them to their users…)
- If you illegaly download a song under copyright you are subject to 38 euro fine. 10 millions French (1/6 of the population) use p2p software today to download “illegaly”. How are we going to enforce this law??
- …

Another important point is that the French gouvernement is very pro-DRM. The gouvernement is against interoperability (Well, they say they are for interoperability and open source software, but always advise to vote against amendement that could save interoperability and open source software…)
I dare to say that our ministry of culture is corrupted (he was already found guilty of stealing public money for his political organisation years ago. And now he is a ministry, I know crazy stuff…) He preach for whatever the music industry tells him.
Luckily a few parlementarian fought back, actually, it was a struggle. Read in english what one of them as to say about interoperability:

http://www.culturenumerique.net/index.php/2006/03/23/43-interoperabilite-communique-de-presse-explicatif-a-l-attention-de-nos-amis-americains

Bad intentions, one good article, very bad law.

Wow. People just don’t realize how incredibly difficult it is to have created the iPod/iTunes/iTMS experience. Sony, which understands the concept experience, tried to create a complete system like Apple, but failed miserably in implementation. For three years now, MS and its hundreds of partners have attacked with “iPod killers” and “iTMS killers,” and they’re still attacking, yet they fall further and further behind, as they mumble promises for next year. Excuse me, while I shout: IF THE CONSUMER EXPERIENCE IN THE WMA WORLD OF CHOICE WAS BETTER, THEY WOULDN’T GET TROUNCED BY THE APPLE WORLD OF IPOD ONLY!!!

But these competitors are so deluded by and fixated on the idea that consumer choice is paramount. Because they think it doesn’t hurt the consumer experience. Wow! What empirical evidence do they have of this? Windows OS. Ugh! They refuse to see the drawbacks to the consumer experience caused by this supposed goodness of choice. Even as Windows, with all its ills, delays, and opportunity costs in lost innovation and lost productivity, stares them in the face everyday. And even as millions of consumers ignore “THE NO-LOCK-IN CHOICE OF WMA” and flock to the iPod, because the convenience, simplicity, and just works experience to be had today is worth far more than the potential of lock-in tomorrow. (And for those that aren’t confident that iPods will always be better: they just keep buying CDs and rip.)

The consumer experience is of utmost importance. Protect it. (As an aside, consider the state of the US car industry – GM/Ford/Chrysler vs. Toyota/Honda. Just works=success? )

Let me be clear: I would prefer no DRM. Systems would be much simpler. But that’s not possible until government’s and consumers spend their energy persuading music owners to no longer insist on DRM. Focus on the disease, not the symptom.

1. Is the law online somewhere? A link? Translated into English?
2. Your first sentence says you can ask Apple for the code for Fairplay. And what will you do with it? If you are going to sell Fairplay songs, on whose player are those songs supposed to work? All Fairplay players, including the iPod? If you are going to sell a Fairplay player, should iTMS songs be playable on your player? Or just Fairplay songs from your store?
3. Your responses only answered one of my questions – the iPod need not play WMA DRM. Your first two questions turned my questions around backwards. But based on your first sentence, I suppose the answer is yes – Apple is required to let others start selling Fairplay songs and Fairplay players. Am I correct in saying that?
4. Today consumers can choose this combination or another combination, and they’re choosing iPod. But they could choose to use the WMA standard and have many hundreds of players and hundreds of stores to choose from. Or they can be foolish, in your eyes and the French legislators eyes, and choose the Apple way and be stuck with iPods and iTMS forever. Why do you need to protect those fools who choose iConvenience/iLock-in? Don’t you know they want it? Your law doesn’t really add any more choice.
5. When Apple has to let others use Fairplay, can Apple put up big stickers on the iPod packaging that say “for most reliable service, use iTMS”? Like if I buy super-cheap ink refills for my printer from no-name brands instead of from HP/Epson/Canon, I know it’s my risk and that if they don’t work, I should not call HP/Epson/Canon? :)

Well, sorry about that mark but you should just stick to what the law says…

This amendment enables people/companies to ask DRM makers (through justice if necessary) for the means to play/be able to use their DRM format, for interoperability purposes only.
Does it require the iPod to play WMA/WMA DRM? Not at all.
Does it require WMA stores to sell FairPlay AAC? Not at all.
Does it require Apple to provide WMA DRM support in iTunes? Not at all.
But it enables VLC developpers to ask Microsoft to provide information on WMV9 and WMV10 so they can make these formats play in their software.

I don’t see what the big threat to the consumer experience is.
You implied that the best experience was iPod iTunes iTMS, and I won’t argue (actually I don’t know which combination is best). So, people will be able to choose this combination, BUT they will also be able to chose something else. This something else might not be as good, but they’ll still be the “right” choice available. So were is the threat?
Or are consumers not responsible enough to get to choose?