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Author: Jonathan Arber
The media reports that the French government has announced plans for a bill, known as the Author's Rights Law, that will impose interoperability on those selling digital music online, and manufacturing digital music players. In effect, this would force Apple to open up its iTunes store in France and sell tracks without its proprietary FairPlay DRM, which currently prevents downloads from being played on devices other than iPods. Much of the media response to this bill has centred on the fact that Apple will almost certainly pull out of France if it is forced to sell files in an interoperable format. The key reason for iTunes' success is that it is so closely tied into the iPod - in essence, it works as a marketing tool for the portable media player. Apple is unlikely to be willing to make an exception for France, and has already released an angry press statement, accusing the French of 'state-sponsored piracy'. If the law goes through, Apple is likely to choose a loss of revenues over opening up its model to competitors and piracy, and thus shut down the French iTunes store. This may be bad news for Apple, but it's potentially great news for French consumers. Ultimately, this law is designed to give consumers more choice when it comes to digital media, and allow them to convert and use the files they have bought as they wish - surely one of the key benefits of the digital format. The bill also raises further debate about the degree to which digital rights management (DRM) affects consumers' rights, and the degree to which governments should regulate the digital music industry, which, after all, is still in an early phase of growth. The bill still has to go through a vote in the Senate, expected some time in May, after which it will go through further possible revisions before actually becoming law. This is actually a revision of an earlier draft of the bill, which proposed a system of collective licensing in France. It would basically have legalised music file sharing - consumers would pay a monthly fee to a central licensing agency, in exchange for which they could legally download any music files over P2P. The central agency would monitor file sharing, and divide royalties between artists depending on the popularity of their tracks - similar to the current system for radio airplay. This bill was defeated, but the fact that it was even proposed, and gained considerable support, shows how forward thinking the French government is when it comes to solving the problem of illegal file sharing. Time will tell if the French example has an effect on the rest of the world, but for now - vive la revolution!
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