The DRM in iTunes was forced on Apple by the Music Industry in America. France is fighting back and a vote just passed that could see the forced DRM stripped from iTunes and the iPod.
The alternative is Apple takes a 5% profit hit and pulls out of France.
I’m a big Apple fan, I love my PowerBook, but I’m with France on this DRM is bad and someone needs to stand up for consumers. In this case it’s France.
It’s so hard to support France. Really.
To many, France’s move seems patently unfair to Apple.
The company created the market for legal music downloads, why shouldn’t it dominate it? Why should the French government help competitors like Microsoft or Sony to get a foothold in a market they have proven incapable of competing in? And why should Apple be subject to antimonopoly legislation when rivals like Microsoft traditionally have not? To free marketers, it’s government meddling at its worst.
But French legislators aren’t just looking at Apple. They’re looking ahead to a time when most entertainment is online, a shift with profound consequences for consumers and culture in general. French lawmakers want to protect the consumer from one or two companies holding the keys to all of its culture, just as Microsoft holds the keys to today’s desktop computers. — Wired
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