p2p news / p2pnet: A copyright bill Apple boss Steve Jobs didn’t like, calling it “state-sponsored piracy,” has been neutered by the French Senate.

A draft law passed by France’s National Assembly would have barred Apple or anyone else, such as Microsoft, from trying to force people into buying a particular product through so-called Digital Rights Management (DRM) measures .

All that remained was for the bill to be cleared by France’s Senate. Ratiatum’s Guillaume Champeau said at the time, “They don’t have a reputation of being very progressive, but sometimes they surprise us.”

No surprises this time, however.

“The Senate version of what is being called the iPod bill softens some measures that could have forced Apple to open all music sold from its iTunes Music Store to play on portable devices other than the Apple iPod,” says The New York Times.

The consumer-friendly version would have allowed people to, “ask a court to force companies like Apple to let songs bought from iTunes play on other portable devices,” says the story. The new corporate music industry friendly version, “would accept such appeals only from companies”.

But as BusinessWeek Online head puts it in Apple to France: Drop Dead?, “the move is unlikely to quell concerns at Apple, making it very possible that the company will close its iTunes music store in France”.

It goes on that the neutered version calls for Apple and other companies, “to submit their DRM technologies - Apple’s is called Fairplay - to a government agency that will oversee digital copyright issues. In exchange, Apple and others would receive licensing fees and guarantees that their cooperation wouldn’t weaken copyright protection.

“There’s also a provision in the Senate version that may allow Apple not to share its DRM at all. It could go to the digital copyright agency and make the case that its technology is not designed to protect Apple, but rather the musicians whose music it sells. The French are extremely protective of the ‘droit d’auteur.’ If the agency agrees that Apple is simply protecting the Rolling Stones, Britney Spears, and other artists, it may not need to turn over the Fairplay software code.”

However, with not-so-subtle pressure from the US administration, and from Apple itself, in the background, the change won’t surprise anyone.

US commerce secretary Carlos Gutierrez said he planned to study the law and the mainsytream media had him saying, “Any time something like this [bill] happens, any time that we believe that intellectual property rights are being violated, we need to speak up, and in this case, the company is taking the initiative.”

And as p2pnet posted, the National Assembly decision would have been, “doubly galling to Jobs because it may also stymie his efforts to introduce a hard-core marketing scheme that he’s been highly successful with in the U.S., in France.

“Under it, Apple gets into major teaching institutions with Apple iPods and iTunes, which are spuriously presented as important teaching aids, and which are promoted and sold on Apple’s behalf by unpaid school staffs.

“In the U.S., Duke University was to the fore as well, with Stanford close behind. It doesn’t stop with iPods. In Kutztown, N.Y., for example, students are forced to use Apple laptops at school, whether they want to or not.

“Now Apple has started a “collaboration” with the first French teaching unit for a similar arrangement.

“Under the terms of the two-year partnership, Apple will work closely with a business school near Versailles on “integrating iPods and other digital technology into classrooms and curricula”.

Stay tuned.

Also See:
they surprise us - French ’state-sponsored piracy’, March 22, 2006
The New York Times - French Digital Music Copyright Bill Advances, May 12, 2004
BusinessWeek Online - Apple to France: Drop Dead?, May 12, 2006
p2pnet posted - Apple: foiled in France, March 28, 2006

This entry was posted on Friday, May 12th, 2006 at 9:53 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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