France adopts toned down version of download law

The French parliament on June 30 adopted a watered-down version of a law once seen as posing a major threat to the future of online media stores, such as Apple's market-leading iTunes, in France.
The law, intended to counter the dominance of big players such as Apple or Microsoft in online media stores, aroused bitter opposition in its original form and sparked suggestions that Apple might exclude France from its iTunes service.
But the final version of the law allows online distributors to retain significant control over so-called Digital Rights Management (DRM), the technical measures that control access to digital data including songs, films or software.
Songs bought on iTunes now can only be played directly on Apple technology, like iPod players, although they can also be burned on to CDs.
In its initial form, the bill would have forced online stores like iTunes to share DRM code, effectively removing the barriers that stop songs it sells being played on portable MP3 devices and computers designed to work with other music stores.
But after amendments introduced in the upper house of France's parliament, the Senate, the law allows companies to restrict the compatibility of songs or films sold online if they have the agreement of the copyright holders.
Opponents of the original bill, including Apple, said it would have opened the door to widespread piracy and threatened the future of legal online sales of digital content.
But the opposition Socialists and UFC, or Federal Consumers' Union, said the amendments represented a surrender to big corporations and a defeat for consumer rights.
TECHNICAL RESTRICTIONS: The law allows online shoppers to make private copies of the works they purchase, and any technical restrictions would have to ensure this remained possible, but it is unclear how many copies a user can make.
"The technical measures must comply with the right of the customer to make private copies," said Valerie Aumage, a lawyer at Paris law firm Dubarry, Le Douarin, Veil. "The doubt is over the exact scope of the right to make private copies."
"It's clear that there are limits, for example, on the number of copies that can be made but it's not clear how many are allowed for each kind of work," she said.