allisnow: (mood // everybody else sucks)
[personal profile] allisnow
Apparently the French don't like the fact that iTunes can only be used with Apple products, namely the iPod.
France is pushing through a law that would force Apple Computer Inc to open its iTunes online music store and enable consumers to download songs onto devices other than the computer maker's popular iPod player.

Under a draft law expected to be voted in parliament on Thursday, consumers would be able to legally use software that converts digital content into any format.

It would no longer be illegal to crack digital rights management -- the codes that protect music, films and other content -- if it is to enable to the conversion from one format to another, said Christian Vanneste, Rapporteur, a senior parliamentarian who helps guide law in France.

"It will force some proprietary systems to be opened up ... You have to be able to download content and play it on any device," Vanneste told Reuters in a telephone interview on Monday.

Now, I can understand not wanting to have to get an iPod in order to listen to mp3s downloaded from the web. I've been toying with the idea of getting an mp3 player at some stage, just for portability reasons; I've gotten so used to having all of my music files on the computer with me that I feel bogged down with something as cumbersome and 20th-century as a CD player. But I wouldn't get an iPod because I simply have never met a piece of Apple hardware that I liked.

However, iTunes is not the only place on the web to download music legally. Personally I find Napster's service to be much preferred because you pay a flat fee rather than paying per song. As Lee over at RT points out:
This is nothing more than the French government seeing an American company selling an American device to French consumers, and being pissed off that a French company isn’t profiting from it, so they’ll use the power of the state to skew the market in their favor.

Yup. Sounds French.

Date: 2006-03-14 06:53 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] madjm.livejournal.com
*loves Apple*

Date: 2006-03-14 07:03 am (UTC)
ext_36286: (mood // everybody else sucks)
From: [identity profile] allisnow.livejournal.com
Hey, I'm standing up for the dorks here, you don't have to taunt me like that ;)

Date: 2006-03-14 07:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] madjm.livejournal.com
Heh. Sorry about that. :)

Date: 2006-03-14 12:15 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hwcarnage.livejournal.com
No part of that makes sense

Dear france
you don't like apple?
don't buy an ipod!!
get a zen or something
Love Jahncie

PS you suck

xx




Date: 2006-03-14 01:50 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] neadods.livejournal.com
France is pushing through a law that would force Apple Computer Inc to open its iTunes online music store and enable consumers to download songs onto devices other than the computer maker's popular iPod player.

Buh? iTunes permits an audio CD to be burned from songs downloaded from itself. That audio CD can then be uploaded to anything else that can read the standard Cd audio files. It's an extra step, but hardly a prohibition to uploading music to different players.

Date: 2006-03-14 05:49 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tv-elf.livejournal.com
Exactly! It's a good idea to burn the songs to a CD anyway, just to have a backup.

Date: 2006-03-14 06:09 pm (UTC)
ext_36286: (mood // poke poke poke)
From: [identity profile] allisnow.livejournal.com
Easier to just pass a law, I guess.

Date: 2006-03-16 12:00 pm (UTC)

Date: 2006-03-14 01:53 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chiroho.livejournal.com
The difference with Napster is that you don't get the MP3s. You get license locked files so that if you ever discontinue your Napster subscription you can't play the files. And if you want to burn a CD with them, you need to pay the 99c/file, or more for some, that Apple charges.

Date: 2006-03-14 06:11 pm (UTC)
ext_36286: (mood // ooh gimme!)
From: [identity profile] allisnow.livejournal.com
That's true for the basic $9/month, yes, but for $15/month, I think, you can transfer to your mp3 player/burn a cd. So as long as you're downloading more than 15 songs a month, which I know I certainly do, it's worth it.

Of course, I still have the basic $9 thingy because I don't have an mp3 player ;)

Date: 2006-03-14 07:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chiroho.livejournal.com
Ah, I never bothered to do that. Guess I'm just a major cheapskate.

Date: 2006-03-16 12:03 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] mebfeather.livejournal.com
Wow. Losers. It's not like it's hard to put it on another player - burn it to CD, rip onto computer as an MP3, upload to different MP3 player. Idiots.

Date: 2006-03-16 06:22 pm (UTC)
ext_36286: (Default)
From: [identity profile] allisnow.livejournal.com
Wow. Losers.

Losers... French... close enough, I guess ;)

Date: 2006-03-16 10:55 pm (UTC)

January 2013

S M T W T F S
   123 4 5
6789101112
13141516171819
20212223242526
2728293031  

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags