forbes.com— Apple would sooner drop out of the French market altogether than meet the demands of a proposed bill that would allow iTunes to play on competitors' MP3 players
Mar 21, 2006View in Crawl 4
I don't think Apple will be able to comply even if they wanted to. It's the RIAA that's pushing for the DRM. Besides, Apple doesn't make much money on iTunes. They make it on the iPod. That's why iTunes works only with the iPod. Besides. Why the hell does it matter that Apple has or doesn't have a monopoly on online music distribution. It's a luxury item. It's not food, or transportation, or even a work processor that you need to do use for work. It's purely luxury. People are just whining because they can't have their luxury item the way they want it. Oh Noes! Someone has a monopoly on caviar
Actually the unemployement rate in France is 10%, coming down, and the figures are less massaged than most Europeans countries.It probably has the strongest real economy in Europe, as it's not based on personal credit.
Just to be clear as a fan of Apple.... I am all for iTunes being forced to sell an open non-drm'd file. Or atleast allowing other players to work with the itunes music store files (aac). I really don't care about whether or not someone can use their sony walkman with iTunes. But I am going to let all of you non-apple users in on a little secret...The reason Apple (hardcore) fanboys are a bit bothered by this is that it is a well known (proven) fact that the more devices and formats a product must support (like iTunes). The more likely it is to lose a great deal of stability and simplicity. The reason Apple users tend to realize this is because its at the heart of Apples business model. One of the main reasons that Apple computers are given the phrase "they just work" and "no drivers needed, i just plugged it in and voila" is because Apple produces the whole package, the os and the computer. Its this same model with iTunes and the iPod that has made it so successful. To give you an example, I have been a product tester in the years past for several agencies. When trying to sync several players with Napster, Rhapsody, etc... I ran into mixed success and the since those services were trying to support multiple players, the performance and features were very spotty at best.(The following comes from over 500 individual cases as a geek squad agent, and no I am not proud of it.)The truth of the matter is we all know here that running windows "smoothly" takes atleast a little bit of tech experience and the rest of the general public (the majority) who doesn't have a clue on that technology is constantly stumped and annoyed at how their windows computer doesn't work quite right, or at all. I don't blame microsoft for this, they have a tough job, make one os work with a huge multitude of hardware combinations, but lets face facts. Its that problem that microsoft has to deal with that makes windows a generally less stable and prone to problems os.So while France is doing something that I feel is right for the people in a consumer rights standpoint, it will in turn hurt the technology being served to the people. We can't remove DRM unfortunatly, if we did all the content providers would run away. Instead we need to pick one uniform DRM and stop this ridiculous mulitple DRM formats (just cause we can) bulls**t that BOTH Apple (AAC) and Microsoft (WMA) are pulling.
unless you own Apple stocks, I don't see why you should care about this decision. I have a powerbook, an ipod and I love osx, but that doesn't mean that I want Apple to rule the world and the electronic distribution of music.Jobs is doing what Gates has been framed for... he's trying to set up a monopoly, and I guess that if I were in his shoes I'd want to do the same thing. But that's no reason to let him do it, don't you think?Stop the French bashing btw, stop any nationality bashing as a matter of fact... It's simply endless and gets us nowhere, and has nothing to do with this Digg... To those who don't see why France's opinion matters, and those who probably ditched too many geography/economics classes: Together with Germany, France is leading Europe (roughly 600 million people according to wikipedia)
yeah let companies decide what's good for you! don't rely on someone you've elected and chosen to represent you try to sort out things for you... corporations know what's best for the public.(nb this is sarcasm)
leftfootMar 21, 2006
It's Apple's product, not the French. So why should they try to take it over? Apple should tell them to f**k off.
mshireMar 21, 2006
Apple should not piss off the French which has a big voice in the EU and could push other counties to do the same.
Closed AccountMar 22, 2006
I don't think Apple will be able to comply even if they wanted to. It's the RIAA that's pushing for the DRM. Besides, Apple doesn't make much money on iTunes. They make it on the iPod. That's why iTunes works only with the iPod. Besides. Why the hell does it matter that Apple has or doesn't have a monopoly on online music distribution. It's a luxury item. It's not food, or transportation, or even a work processor that you need to do use for work. It's purely luxury. People are just whining because they can't have their luxury item the way they want it. Oh Noes! Someone has a monopoly on caviar
tonyspencerMar 22, 2006
Actually the unemployement rate in France is 10%, coming down, and the figures are less massaged than most Europeans countries.It probably has the strongest real economy in Europe, as it's not based on personal credit.
althe3rduwwMar 22, 2006
Just to be clear as a fan of Apple.... I am all for iTunes being forced to sell an open non-drm'd file. Or atleast allowing other players to work with the itunes music store files (aac). I really don't care about whether or not someone can use their sony walkman with iTunes. But I am going to let all of you non-apple users in on a little secret...The reason Apple (hardcore) fanboys are a bit bothered by this is that it is a well known (proven) fact that the more devices and formats a product must support (like iTunes). The more likely it is to lose a great deal of stability and simplicity. The reason Apple users tend to realize this is because its at the heart of Apples business model. One of the main reasons that Apple computers are given the phrase "they just work" and "no drivers needed, i just plugged it in and voila" is because Apple produces the whole package, the os and the computer. Its this same model with iTunes and the iPod that has made it so successful. To give you an example, I have been a product tester in the years past for several agencies. When trying to sync several players with Napster, Rhapsody, etc... I ran into mixed success and the since those services were trying to support multiple players, the performance and features were very spotty at best.(The following comes from over 500 individual cases as a geek squad agent, and no I am not proud of it.)The truth of the matter is we all know here that running windows "smoothly" takes atleast a little bit of tech experience and the rest of the general public (the majority) who doesn't have a clue on that technology is constantly stumped and annoyed at how their windows computer doesn't work quite right, or at all. I don't blame microsoft for this, they have a tough job, make one os work with a huge multitude of hardware combinations, but lets face facts. Its that problem that microsoft has to deal with that makes windows a generally less stable and prone to problems os.So while France is doing something that I feel is right for the people in a consumer rights standpoint, it will in turn hurt the technology being served to the people. We can't remove DRM unfortunatly, if we did all the content providers would run away. Instead we need to pick one uniform DRM and stop this ridiculous mulitple DRM formats (just cause we can) bulls**t that BOTH Apple (AAC) and Microsoft (WMA) are pulling.
sfacetsMar 23, 2006
This account has been closed by the user
kunitMar 27, 2006
Screw france who needs them anyway?
dynamodMar 30, 2006
unless you own Apple stocks, I don't see why you should care about this decision. I have a powerbook, an ipod and I love osx, but that doesn't mean that I want Apple to rule the world and the electronic distribution of music.Jobs is doing what Gates has been framed for... he's trying to set up a monopoly, and I guess that if I were in his shoes I'd want to do the same thing. But that's no reason to let him do it, don't you think?Stop the French bashing btw, stop any nationality bashing as a matter of fact... It's simply endless and gets us nowhere, and has nothing to do with this Digg... To those who don't see why France's opinion matters, and those who probably ditched too many geography/economics classes: Together with Germany, France is leading Europe (roughly 600 million people according to wikipedia)
dynamodMar 30, 2006
yeah let companies decide what's good for you! don't rely on someone you've elected and chosen to represent you try to sort out things for you... corporations know what's best for the public.(nb this is sarcasm)