A law passed by the French Senate and National Assembly last month that would force Apple to make its iTunes service interoperable with all portable music players has been found wanting by the French Constitutional Council, the highest constitutional authority in France.
The Council issued a decision on Thursday saying that parts of the law violate the constitutional protections of property. But, the decision did not go as far as saying that Apple couldn’t be forced to open up its proprietary DRM so that is music would play on all devices — the Council said that Apple has to be compensated for the use of its technology.
While the Constitutional Council highlighted the need for compensation, it was not such good news for Apple and other companies that what remained in place is the principle of forced interoperability, said Jean-Baptiste Soufron, legal director of the Association of Audionautes, a group opposed to copy restrictions. “It is good news for Apple because they receive monetary compensation, but much bigger bad news if it forces them to license iTunes,” he said. “We might see the first test case of this by the end of the year.”
For those interested in reviewing the twist-and-turns of the political ping pong ball that Apple’s DRM has become in France, Mike at TechDirt has an excellent two paragraph history. Meanwhile, the EU is probing whether the two emerging rival DVD technologies, Blu-Ray and HD-DVD are violating EU competition rules. (Tip on that last item to TechLiberation Front.)
Cynthia Brumfield at 10:20 AM|Comments(0)
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