The dominance of the Apple iPod hit its first European stumbling block yesterday when French MPs voted to force companies to allow music downloads to be played on all types of digital players, not just their own.
Apple’s online music store, iTunes, dominates the global online music market, selling about 3m songs a day for 99 cents or 79p each. But the tracks can only be played on Apple’s own iPod, which is also the most popular digital music player.
Forgive me, but don’t the Members of the French Parliament have matters a little more pressing than quashing American pop culture?
-Bruce (GayPatriot)
I don’t think pop culture has anything to do with it. The issue is the French business sector disaster, and utter lack of innovation. They want to be able to profit from the technology without having invested anything in it.
Socialism strikes again.
France stinks!
This is just an attempt by a formerly powerful country to remain relevant.
It’s FRANCE
In the I.T. world thats roughly the equivalent of McDonalds in the world of haute cuisine.
People, please! Not only does the French legislature’s bill not have anything to do with opo culture itself, BUT it actually promotes competition by not allowing an essential monopoly. Certain songs and artists are only available on iTunes. If you want that song, you need to buy an iPod. Its win-win for Apple and lose-lose for the little guy. I dislike the French like any other good American, but this bill will actually promote competition and likely drive prices of both iPods and music dowloads down. Isn’t that what Ronald Regan’s just department was trying to do when it forced Ma Bell to kick all the baby bells out of her nest?
I am amazed at the number of young French people who have moved here to the Puget Sound area. It’s one thing to talkl about striking back at France by encouraging a brain drain and something else to see it actually happen.
They don’t see that they have anything more important to do than stop the advance of all pop culture, American or otherwise – anything after Edith Piaf is horrid, horrid, horrid. The whole cultural establishment is the equivalent of wispy little kids with violin cases getting pushed around by bullies with, well, iPods. They even have a Ministry of Culture that that rabid Anglophobe Jack Lang (care to psychoanalyze that?) use to run like a KGB.
Actually, there are many geeks in the United States such as myself that side with the French on this issue. The Ipod is a popular and trendy product, and very user friendly, but it also is a bad one in because of the digital rights management [DRM] proprietary software it requires you to use to listen to music.
Here is a quote from Will Smith; an editor at Maximum PC:
So don’t buy an Ipod, get a Creative Zen or one of the other players that allows you to play music in a variety of formats rather than the Ipods stupid DRM one. Which incidentally doesn’t even work, you can find and download hacks for every version they put out.
I’m not against copyright management BTW, but the ways in which they have been trying to do it are stupid.
Some of the methods used, such as by Sony, install mal-ware on your computer when you insert a CD – without telling you. It actually opened up virus vulnerabilities on your computer. Sony eventually was forced to recall their disc’s and offer a tool to remove the software.
http://www.maximumpc.com/2006/01/the_real_reason.html
Patrick “Actually, there are many geeks in the United States such as myself that side with the French on this issue.”
LOL! Right, I saw that question polled on Gallup last week… you so operate without a net, without a wire, without a clue. Just make it up as you go, eh? Many, many geeks… they’re collecting in protest in the streets. What’s next? Buy French wine and bread advocacy? LOL. God loves ya.
I knew Michigan-Matt would find some way to make a personal attack. Apparently I’m an addiction he can’t break.
It looks that way Patrick. Also, he’s “French-phobic”. Good thing you didn’t say that you speak the language.
I side with PatriotPal on this one. As does The New York Times.
Why should Apple have a monopoly on downloads?
Remember when MIDI (musical instrument digital interface) was introduced? There was a lot of kicking and screaming. But it’s turned to be a VERY good thing for all the keyboard manufacturers.
Ipod? Vera is happy to crank up her vintage RCA Victrola with the original brass speaker cone (it plays 78’s and 33 1/3’s for variety).
Nothing like Cole Porter or Bing Crosby on a Victrola.
As for the Minister of Culture in France: You may want to start firing artist and start hiring firemen! From where I sit, you’re facing an invasion and it’s not ipods (maybe imams?).
Nonetheless, Vera won’t throw fuel on the fire (so to speak) by bashing French Culture (or the death thereof) in the same week Oleg Cassini passed away (yeah, Vera knows he’s Italian/Russian – but the French adopted him as their own).
Patrick, my apologies if I have given you cause for some offense or slight because I pointed out a falsehood in your argument. Nothing personal I assure you.
I was specifically referring to your created “fact” that many geeks in America side with the Assemblee nationale –which is likely untrue and patently false. As a fellow geek I take exception to even being usggestively included in a pro-French proposition.
Just stick to the policy debate and the arguments underlying those assertions. It really is easy to do. No need to get personal about it, Patrick.
Again, my apologies if you thought that was a personal attack. I guess now anyone questioning your false assertions shall be considered to be making a personal attack –I think that might be taking political correctness to its most absurd end. c’est la vie
Patriot pal: “Ma Bell to kick all the baby bells out of her nest?”
That might not be a good example given that now the AT&T juggernaut is eating up all those spun-off SBCs at a clip that would have caused a round of coronaries in the RR era DOJ antitrust offices. I guess the marketplace will work to correct regulatory ineffiencies at some point…
I agree with Patric and PatriotPal on this one. The DRM systems that Apple and Micro$oft love are counter to the free enterprise spirit of innovation. When you buy music with DRM the manufacturer and RIAA has undue control on how and where you can play the music in such a way that, even though you paid for the music, you now have very limited ownership rights. It’s like buying the hot new car, say a Porsche, that you thought would be great to drive down the autobahn (raj will chime in here for sure – love ya) and you won the lottery so you buy it outright. But then after you bought the thing and try to drive it onto the autobahn you find that, throught the wonders of technologies, Porsche installed a limiter on the car that not only won’t let you drive past the speed limit, but it doesn’t allow the car to be driven on many road, including the autobahn. That’s DRM in a nutshell. Also by having that common code on the devices, the ipod crowd will wake up one day to find that their machines have been compromised with a virus taking advantage of that common code and their precious music collection has been erased. Mark my words, it will happen. Someone has already figured out a way to hack RFID tags to gain access to the computers reading them.
It’s freedom of contract within a society, people. If you don’t like the DRM stipulated in the EULA with Apple, then you can go else where. In fact, you can buy another MP3 player and the CD’s of music that you want to hear, rip the tracks, and put them on the non-Apple brand MP3 player you just bought. SHOCKER!!!
Governmental regulation of a business, industry, or sector isn’t always a bad thing (i.e., OSHA, FLSA, and Title VII with regard to employment), but we’re talking about songs which are readily available elsewhere. And even if there are exclusive iTunes artists and songs, then buy those, burn them to a CD, and listen to your hearts content. There is no enumerated right to listen to any song you want on any player. Property rights can be limited by contract…at least in a free market society and not eh socialist b.s. one that the French have.
That’s irrelevant. The ipod is Apple’s technology that they paid lots of money to develop. They can put any DRM on it they want. Nobody’s forcing you to buy one. And the government has no business forcing Apple to give away money to their competition, just because the French are too damned lazy to develop their own technologies.
“The ipod is Apple’s technology that they paid lots of money to develop. They can put any DRM on it they want. Nobody’s forcing you to buy one.
Yes this is true, but many customers don’t understand the limitations until well after they purchase the product. And yes I know – buyer beware! But the argument is that your rights as a consumer are infringed because you no longer own the music you buy and you are none the less limited in your ability to burn CD’s. And in Apples defense; their DRM strategies are less intrusive than others. The latest DVD burners have more and more DRM limitations built in to the devices. Now if you are a good hacker ( being a hacker is not a bad thing despite the negative connotation) can get around much of this stuff thus only the average consumer is negatively affected by these protectionist strategies.
Because it’s Apple’s technology. Never mind that it’s bad business, and they should know that by now — Apple screwed themselves out of a sizeable portion of the market precisely because they were proprietary. But Jobs is a hideous businessman, so that’s not surprising.
If you don’t like it, buy another brand.