shouting loudly

Apple accuses French of “state-sponsored piracy”

The lower house of the French parliament just passed a law requiring digital content vendors to share the inner workings of their technological protection measures with rivals. Apple, the main target (with a lock on digital music sales), would have to allow its media player competitors to create media players that could accommodate their closed “rights” management technology.

Apple is none too happy about this. I’m happy to see their blustering rhetoric on the matter, however–go ahead, Apple, further cheapen the term “piracy”. In light of the popularity of the image of REAL pirates (eye patches and all), the copyright industries already prefer terms like “theft”.

As reported at CNet, the lords of FairPlay may well decide to pull out of the French market rather than reveal the details of their proprietary protection measures.