Unlock iTunes: France to present fait accompli to Apple

Unlock iTunes: France to present fait accompli to Apple

PARIS - The French parliament is mulling over a draft law to force Apple Computer to unlock its iTunes music store so that the songs can be heard on other devices and not just Apple's own iPod. The draft law comes up for vote on Thursday.

"It would no longer be illegal to crack digital rights management (the codes that protect music, films and other content) if it is to enable to the conversion from one format to another," said MP Christian Vanneste, who often helps guide new laws into France.

"It will force some proprietary systems to be opened up. You have to be able to download content and play it on any device." If the law comes into effect, Apple will have open up its iTunes store and allow the music to be converted into any format after the appropriate software is downloaded.

Apple's iTunes corners around 83 percent of the music download market and hence French lawmakers want the system to open up to allow competition. Analysts feel that even if the law is passed Apple will not shut down iTunes in France, “If it happens, I suspect Apple would still keep iTunes open in France.

The incremental risk of competitors coming in and gaining traction is small… It would be a bigger negative to shut down iTunes," said Gene Munster, an analysts with Piper Jaffray. “Even if Apple opened up iTunes, this would still require another MP3 player maker to create another player that people want.”

The new draft law is designed to bring into force the European Union Copyright Directive, which was supposed to have been implemented by December 2002, but was not done in France. The directive says that consumers who download pirated music would be fined €38, while those who share music files would be fined €150.

But those who manufacture the file sharing system would face €300,000 in fines and three years in prison. Norwegian hacker Jon Lech Johansen has already broken through the iTunes DRM by creating a program called PyMusique, which enabled Linux users to buy music from Apple and play it on any player.