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iTunes For Everyone

How many times have you walked to your car or to work and thanked the technology gods for allowing you to have the added entertainment of an iPod with iTunes. Regardless of what MP3 player you use and what website you decide to download music off of, the one that started it all was the iPod. Yet it seems that France is attempting to take away the one thing that makes iTunes, well, iTunes. On Tuesday French lawmakers voted 296 to 193 in support of a law that would stop Apple, plus any other firm selling music downloads, using proprietary software to limit what people can do with tracks they have bought.

The draft law now goes to the Senate - the upper house of the French parliament - for final approval before it gets on to the statute books. If the draft becomes French law it will mean that firms selling music must make available information about the software they use to stop songs being copied - so-called Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems. This would enable tracks downloaded in one format to be changed and played on any other device. France said it hoped other European nations enacted similar laws.

The law allows any interested party to request information about the DRM system so the protected files can be made interoperable. This is potentially a big blow for Apple, whose iTunes/iPod business model is built on its very lack of interoperability with other devices and services. In a response issued after the law won initial approval, Apple said: "If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers."