The French Parliament has voted into law a requirement that online music services must limit DRM restrictions and allow customers some choice.
Under the new law, Apple would be forced to allow iTunes Music Store customers the right to play their songs on devices other than iPods and computers.
Apple’s choice would appear to be either abide by the law, and change its DRM in France; or close the French iTMS.
And that’s not all. The law includes all manner of new regulations for fair use of media, P2P file sharing, and much more. BoingBoing has detailed commentary.
Anyway, French law might be the least of Apple’s worries if Google starts a music store too.
But you can burn purchased music on CD in CDDA (standard audio format), can't you?. This CD could be played in legacy CD players and imported in SW supplied with other MP3 players. So in fact Apple does not restrict you too much ;-)
voted into law Only the bill was approved.
Is this blog not mis-stating the actual state of play?
Lawmakers in the National Assembly, France's lower house, approved the bill 296-193. However, the law has yet to be debated and approved by the Senate--a process that would not begin until at least May, according to report. according to ipodnn.com
Do you really think Sony/Apple will jeopardise their DRM programs? Once it is published, it will hacked. The most likely outcome - they will close iTunes 'France'.
This is a no-brainer for Apple. The music store only exists to promote the iPod. Apple has already stated that this law will probably result in more iPod sales since there will be more illegally available content to put on them! Apple will close the music store, and let iPod sales happily continue.
Another link that provides some good details on what the laws mean, and how much of the conventional media got it wrong, can be found at bbum's weblog-o-mat (although the server seems to be down at the moment).