Well, you just know they've been looking for an excuse to kick French butt.

french people smell funny.....

french people smell good like smelling p***

The government here in Belgium are also looking to implement this law. If its not just France but a lot more country's i think this is a good change. DRM won't disappear but MS, Real, Sony and Apple would be forced to work together.

Still wondering if burning to CD is enough to be accepted as interoperable in this law. I'm also wondering waht the consequences will be on the renting model that MS uses.

"I would compliment that company because we need for companies to also stand up for their intellectual property rights."

You mean like Google did Mr. Gutierrez?

Let's face it - everyone here likes Apple and their innovative products. There does however need to be a way to play the music you purchased with your hard earned money on other systems. I understand the need for some type of protection but Apple will eventually need to open up or license their DMR technology to other companies.

I have a Tivo and can not play my songs through them because Apple won't allow it. I am not stealing - I just want to play the music I paid for in other systems. People should not be locked playing their music only on Apple products.

Think about it. Would you purchase a CD if would only play on one particular brand of player? It severely limits what you can do with your music.

well as a Native, I kinda like it! ;o)

But, back to the topic, I think that it shows again how I-M-P-O-S-S-I-B-L-E it is to make this delirious idea of internet work! At least on the $ side (thing that the net was not build on/for so somehow it might be a fair revenge ;) Anyway, free music, well, go down to your local public library, "rent" your CDs and rip them, et voila! Isn t the result the same? OK, you need cash to host all this stuff etc. And the majors want their $. What about the artists in this deal, I am thinking about all those guys out there who do sharewares, I do use some of them and did give/pay for the ones I use. Those software are born with the net, The industry of mu$ic is a $ machine and never adapt to the net. I beleive that is we could pay a few cents for a track, we would, without looking at it, but we are not in touch with the artist himself. $1 for a track 50% goes to Apple, and 2 cent to the artist. If each band hosted his own music (or had it organised) like the software developpers i mentioned, we would not have to face this problem, + I am convinced that they would have adopted a unique file format!

Et voila! That was my 2 cents, the price of a track! ;o)

Yeah, this law is a great idea. And while we're at it, we should force all toaster manufacturers to also include refrigerators.

C'mon guys, if you don't like what's for sale, just don't buy it. Nobody is forcing you to buy an iPod or songs from iTunes.

This is actually just about an electoral season in France. I'd rather have Apple designing the products and service I use than some politician.

Apple has made no claim or warranty that songs purchased from iTunes will play on other devices. Why not require Sony to make Play Station games play on the XBox. Is that fair? Apple has not claimed that there DRM is an open standard and should not be required to play everywhere.

Apple brought you the ability to legally purchase music online, set a reasonable price for the songs and now you complain. Cool, now when the price that you pay for music goes up you will have the French to blame. This sets a bad precedence. If you are not happy with Apple's Business practices do not buy the product. The fact is once again Apple has created a superior product in iPod and iTunes, has changed the way we think and the kids on the short Bus are all confused. You need proof. Would you be complaining if the products sucked?

I got a good Idea, teared pricing. You want your music to play on other devices how about $2.99 per song for you, and $.99 for iPod users.

There is Copyright, Trademark, Patents - but there is *no such legal animal* as Intellectual Property.

It is time for us all to accept that music Copyright is already covered by laws internationaly, and music IP is totally bogus.

Music Copyright law is very clear, where DRM generally ignores Copyright laws regarding Fair Use.

So lets make up a bogus word - like intellectual property - and use DRM to elliminate Fair Use and violate the laws to the consumers disadvantage.

Hmmm.

IP??? Lets get your head on straight - *there is no such animal*!!!