Loading the iPod with egalitarianism

I just got back from a business trip to France, and this is very much on the mind of the tech-savvy French. Washington Post: Loading the iPod With Egalitarianism. Excerpt:

PARIS -- All is not well in the French world of digital music, as Nicolas Paitre, a salesman at one of Paris's largest electronics stores, hears from customers every day.

Filing into Surcouf, a glitzy French electronics chain where Paitre specializes in digital music gadgets, they have the same bewildered looks and exasperated queries:

I can download digital songs from one company, but I can't play them on another company's machine?

My hard drive with all my music files crashed, and I can't transfer the songs from my handheld into a new computer?

Oui and oui again. The legal and technical issues of protecting music copyrights are so complex, Paitre said, that many music lovers "feel stuck in the middle" and eventually are forced into the business of trying to foil the protections on their own.

Now comes France's National Assembly to the rescue, or so claim lawmakers who have crafted legislation to force compatibility between digital songs and the different machines that play them. Under the proposed law, Apple Computer Inc., Sony Corp., Dell Inc. and other companies could have to reveal trade secrets of their software so that their songs can play on competitors' devices. ...

In the midst of the debate, the French Senate passed a version of the bill with changes that consumer advocates say would gut it. According to Loic Dachary, vice president of the Free Software Foundation France, the Senate bill would leave computer companies with too much control over hardware and software.

"From a citizen's point of view, it's like having a policeman in your machine who has all the power," he said. "If Apple is allowed to keep its secrets, then no other programs can interact with their programs. This is not competition, this is software totalitarianism."

Both versions would decriminalize piracy and make it equivalent to a traffic infraction, with fines that computer companies say are so small they would offer no deterrence. Software companies complain that the law could hold them accountable for piracy that occurs with use of their products, even if that is not the purpose of the software.

The debate pits French egalitarianism and its tilt toward consumers and regulation against American capitalism and its tilt toward business and markets. Also in the mix is a dose of French nationalism and concern about the U.S. dominance of cyberspace. ...