French 'Interoperability' Law Should Come As No Suprise to Apple

French Trade Minister, Christine Lagarde said that the French copyright bill should come as no surprise to Apple Computer.

"Any time a company restricts competition in a market, it gets the attention of regulating agencies. We have to play by the rules of the game," she said during a visit in San Francisco, a day after meeting with Silicon Valley executives, top Stanford University officials, and French entrepreneurs living here.

So far, Apple has not made any comments about the proposed law that would force 'interoperability' between digital downloads and portable music playing devices, although many experts have suggested that Apple might very well pull out of France rather than opening up their Fair Play proprietary system, but that might not be the case…

"France and millions of its iPod using teen-agers were too valuable a market for Apple to ignore," Lagarde said. And this might be truer than most think, as Apple has already stated that it expects this move to boost, rather than hurt iPod sales, all the while leading to a increase in piracy and illegally downloaded content. Apple might very well stay and make money on the portable players, forgoing the measly profit they make out of digital downloads and riding the wave the French government creates.

Strangely enough, although all digital download services and all portable music players would be equally affected by the proposed law, more often than not, the media portrays it as if only Apple, the iPod and the iTunes Music Store would be affected, which is ironic seeing as how the FairPlay DRM is without a doubt the most flexible and unrestrictive one. Even now, any song purchased from the iTMS can be played on any device whatsoever… does the French government know this?