p2p news / p2pnet: If you’re an iTunes user, you’re already paying well over the odds for your downloads. And you can’t even do what you want with them.

The French Senate is considering legislation that would change that, but Steve Jobs believes he’s figured out a loophole.

New deals with the Big Four Organized Music cartel could allow Apple to dodge French laws that would force the company to effectively nullify the DRM C.R.A.P. which infests iTunes.

A draft Senate proposed by the Senate Cultural Affairs Committee, "softens the terms of a government-backed copyright bill Apple criticized as ’state-sponsored piracy’ after its first reading in March by lawmakers in France’s lower house," says the Associated Press.

As things stand, people who spend $1 and more for each lossy iTunes download can only play it on an iPod.

"The bill adopted by the National Assembly included proposals that would force Apple, Sony Corp. and others to share their copy-protection technologies, so that competitors could offer music players and online stores that are compatible with theirs," says AP.

"The measures were demanded by consumer groups and backed by the government."

But that doesn’t matter to Steve Jobs, who intimated he was thinking about closing iTunes in France altogether if he didn’t get his way. To weasel around the proposal, he’d prevail upon Vivendi Universal, Warner Music, EMI and Sony BMG, to ‘ask’ their contracted performers to sell their music in France only through iTunes.

"Under the key amendment, compatibility disputes would be taken to a new regulatory authority that would have the power to order exclusive file formats be shared – but only if the obstacles they pose are ‘additional to, or independent of, those explicitly decided by the copyright holders’," says AP.

But, "it’s hard to imagine that record companies would be initially keen to help Apple keep its format exclusivity, especially considering the recording industry is beyond wary of singing to Apple’s tune," says Forbes.

"As it tries to claw back control of online music sales, the industry is understood to have already been seeking more compatibility between formats and hardware."

Also See:
DRM C.R.A.P. – Apple and its C.R.A.P., March 4, 2006
Associated Press – Apple’s iTunes May Get Opening From Proposal in French Senate, May 10, 2006
Forbes – Job’s ITunes Could Get Loophole In French Law, May 10, 2006

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 10th, 2006 at 9:30 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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