French law rewritten

The highly-debated French draft law that has continuously threatened to open Apple's FairPlay Digital Rights Management (DRM) or render the iTunes Music Store an illegal entity has been rewritten in committee. The legislation originally contained provisions that would force companies to make their DRM schemes interoperable, but has since seen the removal or rewriting of most of those provisions, according to Ars Technica. Voting is to take place on the changes in the near future, and some French consumer groups are already up in arms. Apple recently said the law would support "state-sponsored piracy," and the U.S. government stood behind Apple in support of the company's move to maintain its closed iTunes ecosystem. Meanwhile, the French Minister of culture yesterday backed the law, saying all music videos purchased from iTunes that currently play exclusively on Apple's iTunes software must be playable by other devices and software programs. Stopdrm.info is calling for a strike in the Place de la Bastille on May 7th, according to the report.

by MacNN Staff