French Law and other absurdities

A Reuters story this morning reveals that the French Parliament, that same wacky bunch that brought you the "fire em early" proposal is now considering legislation that would prevent companies like Apple and Microsoft from locking in their music technology through Digital Rights Management.(DRM)

I am a big fan of open source type activity but in this case I think as the market develops the DRM component of the players is probably a good idea. The pricing on iTunes is convenient and inexpensive. The availability of content is pretty wide ranging. What is more the iPods seem to encourage people to download music that is legal. This is a bit like Starbucks - once you begin to use Starbucks and you begin to like the Double Mocha Maciato No-Fat Percent Latte you choose that as opposed to something like straight coffee. In the end the iTunes phenom is good for the consumers and also good for the musicians. But the French don't have a piece of this game. So they try to pass a law to again repeal the market. One other thing, DVDs also have a DRM component - part of that is three or four different ways to read a DVD - of course the parliament is leaving that one alone.