France forcing Apple Co. to make itunes compatible with all mp3 players

With all due respect to the French people that I like--ok, person--this is a completely wrong-headed law. I sympathize with the aims of the law, wholeheartedly. There's nothing that pains me more than the game of trying to make sure I can play my digital music on whatever device I happen to own in a given week, and I'm basically rolling the dice that the current format I'm using (mp3) will be forward compatible with future players. Historically this has been the case, but there's nothing to say that the RIAA Congress won't pass a law in the future that requires DRM on all copyrighted content, or requiring that players only play DRM'd content.

But as a software developer, my eyes roll anytime I start hearing about a government wanting to get involved with software. This is an area that moves so fast that legislation can't possibly keep up--in some cases, what's "state of the art" may change in the time it takes a bill to even make it out of committee, much less be amended, debated, passed, then updated. The last major debacle I can think of off the top of my head was the DMCA, a copyright protection law that essentially puts all rights in the hands of the RIAA and MPAA cartels, obliterating the concept of fair use for consumers in the process. What these companies are getting away with is unconscionable, and yet every day we get closer and closer to a world in which you are nickel-and-dimed for every piece of information you come across every day. Like going to the library? Forget about it--in 20 or 30 years, they'll be museums, a reminder of a more communist past where people not only read, but could do so FOR FREE!

France's consumers would be much better served by the initiation of an inquiry into the monopolistic practices of the media cartels.

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