Those French, man, I tell ya... first they take a "principled" stand against Bush's war (amounting to an "anything but what the US does" strategy) and now they're takin' on Apple and DRM. Is there any rhyme to their reasoning or are they just taking on the causes cÃ©lÃ¨bre et du jour? And are they even on the right side this time or just utterly confused? I know I am!

💬 Comments from the original post

Tom Raftery · 2006-03-23 04:20:44

To be honest Chris - most people in Europe are, and have been from the beginning, against bush's war in Iraq but that's kind of a red herring here. Ignoring the motives for a second - do you think it is a good idea that lawmakers make it illegal for companies to ship drm'd products?

FactoryJoe · 2006-03-23 08:59:40

Tom -- just a point of clarification: I've been reading Thomas Friedman's Longitudes and Attitudes and I'm at the point in the book where's talking about the build up to the war... He makes a compelling case against France's actions opposing the war -- not out of long term vision, but because they opposed anything US-driven. Anyway -- France was first for DRM and now they're against it... So I'm wondering who the heck is running the show over there and whether they're really thinking deeply about the issues surrounding digital property and how those issues might affect offline property as well. Do I think that it's a good idea that lawmakers make it illegal for companies to ship drmâ€™d products? No, actually, I don't. Companies should be free to do as they please -- given they obey the laws of the country in which they operate (that whole Google-in-China debacle seemed to be the greatest argument for globalization that I've ever seen!) So if France chooses to impose this law, then hey, companies gots ta play by them rules if they want to do business in France. This is no different than France's decision to ban Nazi materials on Yahoo!. It's just part of doing business in a globalized economy. DRM is evil, pure and simple. But it shouldn't be mandated out of existence -- its proponents should be made obsolete by new and upcoming folks who understand that DRM is evil and yet are interested in giving creators a decent standard of living.