“Apple Computer Inc. said on Friday it was awaiting final approval of a French bill aimed at opening online media stores to rivals, which it hoped would leave the market to decide which systems prevailed,” Reuters reports.
“‘We are awaiting the final result of France’s legislative process,’ Apple spokesman Alan Hely said in an emailed statement. ‘(We) hope they let the …. marketplace … decide which music players and online music stores are offered to consumers,'” Reuters reports.
“Apple’s iTunes service is currently the biggest online content store after the runaway success of the iPod player but it faces competition from several rivals including Sony Corp., Dell Inc. and Microsoft,” Reuters reports. “Consumer groups have criticised the amendments and the opposition Socialists denounced the compromise as a ‘facade’ which amounted to a ‘capitulation’ to Apple and Microsoft.”
Full article here.
Apple’s iTunes “faces competition from several rivals including Sony Corp., Dell Inc. and Microsoft?” If that’s the “competition,” Apple’s going to be sitting pretty for quite some time. And, hands up, who’s surprised that the Socialists don’t want to let the market to decide and instead favor government intervention?
[UPDATE: 4:12pm EDT: removed “for” from headline. Thanks, Mr Skills.]
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Apple calls proposed French DRM law ‘state-sponsored piracy,’ predicts iPod sales increase – March 21, 2006
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Dell has a music store?
If they do, great freakin’ job of advertising it Michael!
Well, give them a break for not saying “increasing competition” or “brisk competiton” or something. It is true that the other stores are competition to iTunes, just as Frank’s Diner in Podunk is technically competition to McDonald’s. I don’t smell any ‘iPod Killer” here — other than possibly the French government.
“Await” means “Wait For” – so “await for” means “wait for for”
It should be “Apple awaits….” or “Apple waits for….”
Also, ‘socialists’ or not, the PURPOSE of the legislation is to make it EASIER for the market to decide. Whether, of course, it is the RIGHT legislation to do that is another matter, but reacting just because the Party is called “socialist” instead of looking at the actual policy is not right, IMO.
Having said that, I don’t think they are going about it the right way. They are looking at Apple DRM trying to lock people into iPods, but ignoring Microsoft DRM trying to lock people into Windows. I would stand up and support them if they would only go after Microsoft equally. Otherwise, even though they INTEND to make the market place more fair, they will actually play into Microsoft’s hands.
LOOK! Up in the sky!!
It’s a bird!!
It’s a plane!
It’s a frog.
A FROG?
At least the French Socialist Party intbdd ss, honest enough to call itself Socalist.
I wish all socialist political parties had the guts to give themselves accurate descriptive names. This red, blue, orange, green bullshit is just dishonest.
It’s the music industry that is forcing rotten DRM schemes down our throats. Apple’s version may be the least onerous of all that gains permission from content owners for the purpose of downloading. The French are blaming the messenger, Apple, in this case.
I don’t know what the big fuss is.
90% of all iTMS users have only downloaded between 100-200 songs.
PARIS (Reuters) – Seven-times Tour de France champion Lance Armstrong totally dismissed on Friday a claim by French newspaper Le Monde that he had admitted taking banned drugs including erythropoietin (EPO) at the time he was being treated for cancer.
In a statement, the 34-year-old Texan, said: “The latest story, which alleges an admission of using performance enhancing drugs in a hospital in 1996, is today as absurd and untrue as when it was first circulated years ago. It never happened.”
He described the allegations in the newspaper as “stale, unfounded and untrue.”
Armstrong, who retired after his record seventh consecutive victory last July, has always denied taking banned substances.
The American, who revealed in October 1996 he had undergone surgery to cure testicular cancer, returned to cycling in 1999 to record his first Tour victory.
C’mon Steve – pull their plug!
Damn the french
I have never, ever, ever seen such a bunch of sore losers in my short, miserable, lousy life-never!
I’d tell them to go to hell, but then we’d have to rescue them from there too
http://www.pavefrance.com