Kevin Hassett is a shill
I say he's a shill because I refuse to believe that anyone with such a full resume could be so incredibly stupid as to espouse the views contained in a recent column of his. Surely then, the only logical explanation is that he was bribed, brainwashed, or otherwise coerced into writing this by Apple, Microsoft, et al.[1]
The hubbub is about a bill currently passing through the legislative branch of the French government. Should it become law, companies selling digital music would be required to allow hardware companies to make digital audio players that can play the downloaded music. Right now, you can't play Apple downloads on a Samsung player, Napster downloads on your iPod, etc.[2] The new French law would eliminate such artificial barriers. You see, Apple has to go to /extra effort/ to keep you from playing iTunes Music Store songs on other players. I defy Mr. Hassett to explain how creating artificial barriers can ever move culture, or the economy, forward.
Kevin's makes many claims that are simply too ridiculous to ever do justice in my blog. Most of them make me wonder aloud how any well-educated person could be so incredibly ignorant. Primarily, he seems to center on two [equally false] arguments.
1) This law will encourage copyright infringement (aka 'piracy'), which is a Very Bad Thing(TM).
a) What Apple et al. are likely to do, and the logical result of the law, is to open up their DRM. If Creative could license Apple's FairPlay DRM for its Zen digital audio players, and Apple could license Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM for its iPod digital audio players, then both parties would have satisfied their obligations under the law. What is the result? All the music still has DRM, so the record labels don't need to worry any more about piracy than they do now!
b) The assumption that copying music for personal use is a Very Bad Thing(TM) has nowhere near unanimous support. The rampant popularity of illegal downloading is proof of that. Many people, including highly respected thinkers like Lawrence Lessig and Richard Stallman, would argue that society benefits more by sharing ideas and culture than by granting artificial monopolies to those who happen to create certain expressions of human thought (like, say, a song).
2) This law is stealing from Apple and America and giving all kinds of free shit to the Frogs, and is terribly anticompetitive.
The law would not steal from anyone. Apple has served consumers very well by creating excellent hardware (the iPod lines) and excellent software (iTunes and the iTunes Music Store), and their bottom line has been rewarded for it. Vendor lock-in, however, serves nobody but Apple shareholders, while hurting everybody. Interoperability, which the French bill would require, will /increase/ competition, not hurt it. Increased competition is a Very Good Thing(TM), contrary to what Kevin argues; it gives producers and consumers /more/ choices and drives constant innovation, rather than allowing companies to build monopolies, lock their customers in to their product lines, and then milk the profits for years afterwards.
Aaand I'm spent.
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[1] This is not entirely true. He could just be an anarcho-capitalist. In that case, replace 'shill' with 'idiot who believes in neither welfare states nor meritocracies, but instead thinks that people should be primarily rewarded for their relative ability to screw over their fellow human beings.'
[2] Again, this isn't 100% true. It generally only applies to major-label (i.e. RIAA) music. Which is, to say, 99+% of what is downloaded from the stores.
