The French are—shockingly—waving a flag of surrender. The bill which caused so much strife between Cupertino and Paris (and led Apple to accuse France of “state-sponsored piracy”) appears to have been gutted by the French Senate.
Gone is the requirement that anyone may ask a regular court of justice to force a DRM publisher to give information needed for interoperability. Now a “high regulation authority of technical measures” will have sole discretion as to whether this information will be available.Some might tout this as a win for Apple, and indeed in the business realm it might be, but the law the French Senate is proposing to implement is the EUCD, the European Union’s equivalent of our own Digital Millennium Copyright Act. I don’t know about you, but I wouldn’t wish the DMCA on anybody, even the French. So perhaps you should think twice before you break out the Apple pom-poms.
Meanwhile, the French have decided to do what they do best (besides miming) and stage a protest in the Place de la Bastille this Sunday, the 7th. But will it have any effect? Protests in this country seem to be a mixed bag in general, but the French could always add a little bit of rioting to spice things up.
[via Ars Technica]
