France Sticks It to Apple

[Brendan Goetz]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70461-0.html?tw=rss.technology' target='_blank'>http://www.wired.com/news/columns/0,70461-0.html?tw=rss.technology</a><br /><br /></div><i>"On Tuesday, the French parliament passed a law that would require digital content bought at any online store to be playable on any hardware. The law would be applicable to all hardware and service providers, but the immediate impact would be on Apple and iTunes, and may prompt the company to withdraw from France."</i><br /><br />I am generally against any kind of restrictions being placed on digital content. It would be nice to be able to replace an iPod with an Archos and not have to re-encode an entire library. That is probably the main reason I don’t buy mp3s from iTunes. I think its great that France is coming down on the side of consumer rights and fair use (that, and cheese, make two things France and I agree on), but ultimately I think Apple will just pull out of the market. Now, if the U.S. were to pull a stunt like this….

[Kacey Green]

all of these mega corporations need to get with the program and realize that they are here to serve the consumer and not the other way around

[Anthony Caruana]

I think you'll find it was a draft law and not actual legislation... yet.

Also, the US government is supporting Apple so I doubt that the same will happen in the US.

Personally I think France's government has it wrong. Apple has done the hard work of negotiating a reasonable deal with record companies for consumers. They build a decent player (iPod) and provide one of the easiest buying experiences anyone could hope for online. Why shouldn't they profit from it?

[Gary Sheynkman]

because apart from the wheel the ipod sucks


come on....the best sounding product that apple has is the shuffle (which got a different dac for some odd reason)

[Anthony Caruana]

because apart from the wheel the ipod sucks

come on....the best sounding product that apple has is the shuffle (which got a different dac for some odd reason)

Sorry - I thought this was a discussion about Apple's DRM and the French government. I didn't realise it was a "kick the iPod" discussion.

My mistake. Sorry for contributing to the wrong debate.