Interesting news/reviews/deals from the portable audio market
As expected, the author’s rights law was approved 296-193 by the National Assembly, France’s lower house. It now remains to be debated and voted by the Senate in May. BusinessWeek ran an interesting article regarding the France vs. Apple saga two days ago.
Apple wasn’t excited with the news, as evidenced by their statements:
Apple Computer Inc. [...]
While in the US people who download music illegally are prosecuted in droves, in France they’re taking a more sensible and serious look at things. The author’s rights law, which is to be voted by the National Assembly today, basically says two things:
if you’re caught downloading copyrighted music illegaly you’re paying a harmless 38€ fine—if [...]
France may allow downloading of copyrighted content for private use: “The Association of Audionauts isn’t suggesting that copyright holders go without compensation [...] It supports pairing the amendment’s text with a royalty tax collected from Internet service providers. Those companies would likely raise the money by levying a monthly fee-say, 2 to 5 euros-on customers [...]
From the “don’t you just love them big companies” department: Sony, Philips, Panasonic fined for price-fixing in France: the fines, representing 1% of the companies annual revenus in the county, are €16M for former two (each) and €2.4M for the latter.
The Conseil found that the three manufacturers had colluded with their distributors to fix the [...]
France: copyright levy on flash-based MP3 players to be reduced: it’ll be more aligned to the levy imposed on HD-based MP3 players—for example, as it is now, the levy for a 4GB Nano is €51, while it is less than half (€24) for a 60GB full-sized iPod. With the French authorities’ new decision (to be [...]