Reacting to US and Apple positions about the copyright law, french deputee Christian Paul, who worked hard to defend Free software during the debates, explains the parliament position. “We want to protect consumers’ freedom of choice and privacy. We oppose the idea that the seller of a song or any other kind of work can impose on the consumer the way to read it, forever, and especially in consumer’s home. It is essential to assure that the consumer can choose whatever device she likes, just as she can use her favorite hi-fi today and does not have to buy a new one for each vendor.”
First: we want to protect consumers’ freedom of choice and privacy.
Second: we want to keep the market free and open.
Third: we want to protect free (as in freedom) software developers.
This isn’t a simple issue, especially when you stop to consider how a legitimate business can be rewarded for it’s investment and effort. But the author’s point that you shouldn’t need a different stereo (hi-fi) for each vendor’s product is extremely on target–an excellent illustration.
I salute the French for this forward thinking attitude and law.
The French have it wrong here; you can certainly play MP3’s on an iPod, and that is a totally open format. It is ludicrous and anti-business to whine about Apple’s AAC.
I’m less concerned about Apple and iPod than I am about the right to play DVDs and unknown future technologies on my Linux PC.
You’ll have to convince me that MP3 is an open format. Being the most wide-spread format doesn’t mean it’s an open format. It’s patent-protected.
Seriously, viva la france
Does that mean it’s not cool to hate the french anymore?
</sarcasm>
hey, i didn’t like french that much (they’re not nice to ppl who don’t speak french, generally speaking) but this is way cool… goooo!
“they’re not nice to ppl who don’t speak french, generally speaking”
Like english or US-of-A are nice to people who don’t speak english…
To quote an old man from Texas that scared me.
“I like to shoot cans. Afri-cans, Mexi-cans. . .”
I don’t know if he was joking or not, but I wasn’t willing to hang around to find out.
“But Apple has condemned the French bill, which has yet to be passed by the upper house, as no more than “state-sponsored piracy”.
“If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers,” it said.”
This is just ridiculous, if the (aac) format works on all mp3 players/devices sales can only soar! I would certainly be more intrested in buying the music, knowing that I’ll be able to play it anywhere
Why should I have to buy music a bunch of different times for different devices? I should pay for it once, and play it anywhere. The re-buying music you originally bought on cassete so you could have it on CD was painful enough, I’m not going to be doing it all over again.
The RIAA says DRM is about reducing piracy. Nope, pirates will still get around the DRM. DRM is meant to screw the customers who actually pay for content, and force them to buy it numerous times (or else buy all their electronics from a single vendor).
So, with that in mind, go France!
well… i don’t know about that, indeed. but for example german ppl try to communicate, even if you don’t even try to speak german…
» well… i don’t know about that, indeed. but for example
» german ppl try to communicate, even if you don’t even
» try to speak german…
But then Germans… speak german! ;b
I don’t see how ensuring interoperability with competing music playing devices is going to lead to rampant piracy. I admit that I have not read the entire bill, but from what I have seen, I do not recall a statement saying that the drm protection had to be removed. It called for interoperability which, to me, means that Apple would at least have to license their fairplay drm protection to competitors. That, or stop suing companies(Real comes to mind) that try to provide functionality similar to this for their customers.
It could be a benefit for Apple as others would also have to ensure that their crippled, I mean protected music works on the iPod.
It is assanine to believe that this is going to lead to piracy. Screwing your customers leads to piracy, asking me to pay 9$ for 90 minutes of crap leads to piracy, putting out crap just leads to people seeking other sources for what they want.
Imagine if every movie studio created their own standard for digital video and required you to purchase their player for viewing said movie. That is essentially what we have now. If you want to benefit from the services that Apple offers, you have to purchase Apple hardware. If you see something from someone else you like that Apple doesn’t offer, you can do without, hope that Apple offers it in the future, purchase another piece of hardware that works with that service or look for someone offering it free of charge(i.e. pirate it). And since Apple doesn’t sell MP3s and many of the big name music services don’t either, if you aren’t ripping the CDs yourself to MP3 then they either came from some underdog who puts the customer first or you took the quick and easy route.
To me, it seems like the current way of doing business would lead to more piracy, and if not more, then it certainly isn’t doing everything that is needed to bring piracy to an end.
Hey guys!
First of all I am french and I speak english!!! Oh boy, can you believe that?!? About that I’m 25 and most of the people of my age speak english or at least know how to say : “Bush… again! Noooo… f–k!”
About the law called in french DADVSI you should know that it took its origins in a European Agreement. A part of this law is about DRM and interoperability. About that optikwhite is absolutely right when he says : ” interoperability means that Apple would at least have to license their fairplay drm protection to competitors “. The purpose of a part of this law is to allow people to able to play any kind of music legally obtained on “any” kind of software or music portable player. We will be free as a bird
And of course this will not lead to piracy but to FREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEDOOOOOOOOOOOMMM like Mel Gibson used to say
Edited 2006-03-25 03:59
OK, so… let’s say I build device “X”. I make a file format for it. It happens to be a hit. Now, the government says to me: “Tell your competitors how your format works, and make your device play Microsoft’s wma PaysForSure format too. If you don’t, then we’ll make it legal for everyone to crack your software”
That doesn’t sound fair, IMHO.
(Of course, from the point of view of an end user, guaranteed interoperability is great)
That doesn’t sound fair, IMHO.
“Fair” is a very difficult thing to implement. But if I understand the article, the law does not require any hardware manufacturer to make their hardware play other formats. It only requires that other innovators also be allowed to make devices that play it.
If it still seems unfair that the company has to share its format, consider that the data format is probably irrelevant to the truly innovative part of the device. And one of the stated goals is to make sure every innovator has a chance.
Apple has had a free ride on this one for far too long. What they are doing is an instance of an iniquitous practice: locking customers in by format decisions. I have seen cases in the database world where the request to be able to export my data in csv format led to a prompt suggestion that an upgrade of several hundred dollars was in order. Or perhaps, to get the password to permit de-ecrypted export, you might like to consider doing your web hosting with us. Not cheap? Quality costs, you know.
Precisely the same thing operates on .doc and ODF, it is also the same thing when vendors attempt to restrict by Eula what hardware I may run my bought software on (while respecting copyright). And this is just a case of saying, their music locking format is special to them, and they will use it to make you play your music, which you have bought, on their machines. Which you may not want to.
It is actually a variant of something already unlawful in the EU: the linked sale. It is just like Sony trying to make you buy a special CD player to listen to their music. And as this shows, it is not just wrong, and unlawful, it is also stupid.
We should applaud all efforts to stop lock ins on content that I have bought and paid for. Including requiring either proprietary software to get at it, or proprietary hardware to access and play and run it. OSX on x86, Windows on PPC, Office under Wine, Photoshop on whatever, an iTune on whatever. The principle is exactly the same in all cases.
In this respect Apple and Microsoft are Coke and Pepsi. Its just who plays the same game more successfully.
There will be Apple apologists who will say that the Apple business model requires…. And the reply is the same as if the MS business model requires…. It is, find a business model which respects the local law. If you can’t, leave.
Finaly, A Government that is more interested in protecting the people than large corporations and their monopolies! I guess Apple has not made the donations to the re-election campaigns of enough french government officials. I bet they rectify this before long and this bill won’t become law.
Don’t misunderstand there were a lot of lobbying!
A big community of french was looking carefuly to the law and the discussions of it by internet but only on Real Player and Windows Media Player… The french minister of culture was clearly with big corporations. For example he made vote a law named Vivendi/Universal that will forbid any software which obviously will be able to share non authorize files. The difficulty of the justice will be to determinate the meaning of obvioulsy.
However at the last moment of the discussion of the whole project of law, some deputy of the majority had some regrets and decided to make a second study of the article 7. After a little break, an union of deputy of majority and opposition voted this law of interoperabilty and an other to assure that OS will be allowed to share the source code even with “the way to interoperability” inside.
I almost forgot to tell you that a law will allow us to convert legally any files in any format.
Anyway, I think that the evolution of softwares and internet are going so fast that is ridiculous to make law cause softwares and internet will make their own laws.
Edited 2006-03-25 19:52