French lawmakers approve 'iTunes law'
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French lawmakers gave final approval Friday to legislation that could force Apple Computer Inc. to make its iPod and iTunes Music Store compatible with rivals&#039; music players and online services.
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(InfoWorld) - French authorities will give out 175,000 USB memory sticks loaded with open-source software to Parisian high-school students at the start of the next school year. The sticks will give the students, aged 15 and 16, the freedom to access their e-mail, browser bookmarks and other documents on computers at school, home, a friend's house or in an Internet cafÃ© -- but at a much lower cost than providing notebook computers for all, a spokesman for the Greater Paris Regional Council said Friday. It's a way to reduce the digital divide, said spokesman Jean-Baptiste Roger. The sticks will probably contain the Firefox 2 Web browser, Thunderbird e-mail client, an office productivity suite such as OpenOffice.org 2, an audio and video player, and software for instant messaging, he said. The exact mix of software will be defined by the company that wins the contract to supply the sticks, but will be open source, he said. At the European arm of the foundation behind the Firefox browser, Mozilla Europe president Tristan Nitot hailed the news as "an excellent surprise." It could even be a way to fight software piracy, he said, since the open-source software that the sticks will contain may be freely and legally copied. "It's better to copy that than Microsoft Office: it's cheaper, and it's legal," he said. School heads will distribute the USB (Universal Serial Bus) sticks to 130,000 students at the start of the next academic year, as they arrive for their first of three years at high school. There are 476,000 students in the 468 public high schools operated by the council and the 213 privately run schools it funds. Apprentices at the 173 professional training centers funded by the council will receive the other 45,000 sticks. If the project goes well, there's no reason why funding shouldn't be renewed next year, said Roger. The council plans to spend â¬2.6 million (US$3.4 million) on the USB sticks this year, a small fraction of its overall educational budget. School funding in France comes from many sources. Teachers are paid by the national government, while the provision of teaching facilities including the construction and maintenance of schools is paid for by local governments: city authorities, in the case of primary and middle schools, and regional councils in the case of high schools. In 2006, the Greater Paris Regional Council's budget for maintaining high school facilities, including buildings, libraries and its 120,000 computers, totalled â¬728 million. It also spent â¬195 million on facilities for apprentices in professional training centers.
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iTunes continues to chug along at full speed, with the service now number one in all 22 countries that it operates in, CEO Steve Jobs said at a press event on Wednesday.
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Today Apple launched the &#147;Summer of Music&#148; in Japan with free music from iTunes (Japan&#146;s favorite online music store), collectible iTunes Cards and exclusive live performances at Apple Stores.
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Apple will scrap online pricing policies across Europe for iTunes music downloads and charge consumers in Britain and the rest of Europe the same amount, according to the deal.
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Wednesday was the first day in the life of a new Central License Agreement for music copyright holders throughout Europe. Now, license authorities and music publishers have agreed to dismantle their "home territories" and recognize each other's copyrights. Is this the prototype for the EU's new single software patent authority?
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Apple moved closer to selling DRM-free music with the release Wednesday of an iTunes update.
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InfoWorld - The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.
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Soon, Canada will finally get its own iTunes digital music store. The long-expected announcement came at a press conference held in California last week.
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European officials said they made Âsurprising progressÂ in talks today with Apple over easing the restrictions it imposes on iTunes users.
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Apple will scrap online pricing policies across Europe for iTunes music downloads and charge consumers in Britain and the rest of Europe the same amount,  according to the deal.
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The long wait is over. People in Canada can now use Apple&#39;s iTunes service to download songs at a flat rate of 99 cents a song.
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Leading French lawmakers voted Thursday to water down a draft copyright law that could force Apple Computer Inc. to make its iPod music player and iTunes online store compatible with rivals&#039; offerings.
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InfoWorld - The European Commission ended itsÂ antitrust investigation into AppleÂ after the company agreed to reduce the price of music downloads from its iTunes Web site in the U.K., the European Union's antitrust regulator said Wednesday.
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French legislators approved a measure championed by President Nicolas Sarkozy that would encourage people to work beyond the 35-hour workweek by cutting taxes on overtime pay.
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Apple Computer Inc has rolled out a new iPod that allows users to view and share photos as it opened nine new iTunes music stores in Europe, spurring its rivalry with Microsoft Corp and others.
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Apple Inc. has agreed to scrap its online pricing policies across Europe for its iTunes music downloads