Proposed French DRM-Busting Law Moves Forward

Remember that proposed French law that would open up iTunes? Well, yesterday France's National Assembly passed a draft law that would force iTunes, Sony Connect, and other online music providers to share their DRM schemes with each other. The ultimate benefit would be that consumers could buy music from any online service and play it on any digital audio player.

Apple has the most to lose from this kind of arrangement, because the iPod + iTunes killer combo dominates the market so much that other companies actually strive to be #2 -- but that dominance is only partly due to the iPod's success. Apple, Sony and Microsoft have been building their music/DRM empires entirely on the basis of exclusivity -- there are some acts that make their music available in multiple digital formats, but the higher up the industry food chain a band is, the more likely they're locked into just one format.

How does this help anybody? There used to be a time when you could buy a new music release on record, tape, or CD -- the music industry made money by providing ubiquitous access, not by cutting out big segments of their market.

Somewhat disappointingly, an Apple spokeswoman raised the specter of piracy when commenting on the French decision. I disagree: I love the iTunes model, and would willingly pay money to add to my collection with single tracks -- especially the just-announced Red Hot Chili Peppers bonus tracks -- that I can't get elsewhere. I'm just not willing to go through the trouble of remembering which hardware or software player I need to listen to a particular song. because I'm not into using technology to make my life difficult. The end result is that, for a huge chunk of music, I'm not buying CDs and I'm not buying digital tracks. And I suspect I'm not the only one.