3/17 France weighs forcing iPods to interoperate.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/17/technology/17ipod.html
\_ How the hell can they "force" apple to do anything?
In fact, could the american government even force
such a nonsense requirement? Can't apple just give
france the big F you and not agree?
\_ Did you read the article? "My gut feeling is that Apple
will simply pull out of France if these amendments get
through,"
\_ And France says "OK, then you may not sell music in
France." Which would be pretty dumb, but I suspect that is
what is going to happen.
\_ Apple could, but they probably want to keep doing business
in France. Congress could probably force Apple to open up
as well under the Commerce Clause.
\_ i am not too worried. French didn't do jack shit with
Microsoft
\_ Couldn't Apple do something like "OK, French ITMS users can now
buy WMA files for 2 euro each." Now ITMS customers can play their
music anywhere and almost nothing changed. For bonus points, make
the WMA files non-burnable and non-transferrable to other computers. |