According to al-Reuters, there is proposed legislation making its way through the French parliament to decriminalize the circumvention of digital rights management for music downloads. The thinking behind this law say its proponents, is to allow the conversion of music in the iTunes format (called AAC) to other formats, thereby allowing those files to play on devices other than PCs, Macs and iPods.
Passage of this law would be a disaster for France’s consumers.
Granted, I have a couple of problems with DRM as it works today (but I’ll save that for another rant).
What this law in France will do is to force Apple to pull out of the market. Why? Because Apple has contracts with the owners of the songs to protect it from piracy through the use of DRM. Making iTunes available in France would be placing the content it licenses in a market that will be a safe haven for pirates. And once you start with iTunes, you’ve opened Pandora’s box. What’s next? Pirating DVDs? Digital movies? Copyright and patent infringement? This would actually make France the new global hotspot for piracy, taking that title from China (which is actually cracking down on piracy, btw). If this law passes, intellectual property owners would be smart to pull out of France as quickly as possible because the entire idea of intellectual property would go down the drain (where France’s courage went long ago).
What the socialists pushing this bill continue to fail to understand is that there has to be an incentive for people to innovate and create over and above the personal satisfaction of those things. Like it or not, money is a great driver for innovation. That’s why we have things like iTunes and iPods and DVDs and the lightbulb in the first place. Who’d want to sell into a market where they don’t get paid for their sweat? The result is that France’s consumers will have FEWER choices.
Another thing that these socialists fail to understand is that people have a choice. Unlike governments, there is competition in the marketplace for digital music players and digital music. You don’t have to buy an iPod and get locked into iTunes. I personally own a Creative Jukebox Zen Xtra with a 60GB capacity. Why? Because it gives me a choice of formats — WAV, MP3, WMA and RAX — which means that I can go to pretty much any digital music service except iTunes for my music. Does it have the cachet or glitz factor of an iPod? Nope, in fact it’s downright homely compared to an iPod, particularly the Nano. But I valued substance, high capacity and price over style. I HAD A CHOICE.
So do the people of France.
