French committee surrenders on DRM law

A FRENCH select committee has decided to gut a law which would have protected users from DRM and forced Apple to licence its Fairplay technology.

The law being looked at by the select committee would have forced technology companies to make their DRM schemes interoperable.

Since Apple has made a killing based on the fact that it didn't let anyone know the secrets of its Fairplay technology, the outfit had threatened to withdraw from France.

Now the wording of the law has been tinkered with so that interoperability is nearly impossible. It also now protects DRM publishers from seeing their source code printed online.

The changes still have to be voted on and French consumer groups are furious that the law has been treated in such a way and have called for a street protest.

It will be interesting to see how many students riot in the streets over that one.

More on Arstechnica, here. µ

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