This was a match made in heaven for the music and film industries: Give the customers what you want them to have, when you want to give it to them. And the most amazing part of this scam is the fact that almost every government in the western world backs it at least in principle, and othen through force of law.

That may change this week. If it does, then it's appropriate that France—home to some of the first organized efforts to protect the rights of authors—will also be the first country to tell the corporations controlling the music and film industries to quit using music and movie piracy as an excuse to pick its citizens' pockets.

From this week's article on the French proposal:

Under a draft law expected to be voted in parliament on Thursday, consumers would be able to legally use software that converts digital content into any format.

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 Christian Vanneste, Rapporteur, a senior parliamentarian who helps guide law in 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," Vanneste told Reuters in a telephone interview on Monday.

In fact, the French government has a clear message it wants to send to Apple, and Real, and Microsoft, and every other player in this industry: quit working your customers, and work yourselves instead. Build business models dedicated to making your customers' lives easier and more convenient, and have some faith that the market will reward you.

It's a message that may take a while to sink in: Apple will, by most accounts, hang the fermez sign on iTunes Music Store if the French law takes effect.

Apple will also tell you (as will every other online music distributor) that it has no choice: Its suppliers will not license their product without some guarantee that it will not be pirated.

Of course, that statement is a sham on so many levels that it's hard to know where to begin demolishing it. For starters, the music industry's product is being pirated, relentlessly and on an epic scale, by groups that have nothing to do with the honest, paying customers who end up snared in DRM's web of inconvenience. The industry knows it, most educated consumers know it, and the press certainly knows it, even if we're too polite to blast this charade out of the water every time we write something on the subject.

Also, the notion that today's DRM schemes guarantee anything to anybody is a hoot: Apple's own Fairplay DRM platform has been hacked into complete and utter submission, and the company's countermeasures rarely work for more than a few days. Anyone who prefers to listen to their music without Apple's snitchware attached to it, for example, can take care of business without paying another penny for the privilege (or so I have heard).

Apple's claim that it simply does as it is told by its DRM-addicted overlords in Hollywood is disingenuousness at its sordid best. In fact, the iTunes customers tied down by Fairplay—and most customers, fortunately for Apple, still cannot or will not, for various reasons, remove the DRM from the music they buy—are compelled to use Apple's Web site, client software, and portable media hardware. And when Apple has yet another link to sell customers for their golden handcuffs, the company has a captive audience ready and waiting to hear all about it.

Finally, what about the danger that the music industry, shorn of its DRM "insurance," will gather its goodies and head for the hills? Think about what that means: a complete online-music market vacuum, where legal methods of acquiring digital music and video content simply are not available.

Nature may abhor a vacuum, but entrepreneurs hate them even more. Napster will fade into historical irrelevance, compared to the "free music" monster that would take an instant double-digit bite out of the music industry's global revenue, should online music distribution return suddenly to the Dark Ages. Even music-industry executives aren't that stupid.

I see this as a case where the French government is doing exactly what a government should be doing: using its legislative powers to ensure fair competition on a level economic playing field. If only the alleged champions of lassez faire in our own government could take the hint. . .

Enjoy the rest of your week, and stay in touch.

Matt McKenzie
Editor, Linux Pipeline
mattcmp@sonic.net
www.LinuxPipeline.com

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