More news for all you fans of digital inter-operability. As those much previously reported proposals to force technology firms to share their digital rights management technology head to France's upper house legislature, there are indications that Danish politicians will introduce similar legislation later this year.
As previously reported, the new French law, passed by the country's parliament last week, aims to force more interoperability between competing digital media technologies, and to stop customers from becoming locked into certain software or hardware because of their digital media buying decisions. The proposals have most impact for Apple, whose digital music business model currently locks iPod users to iTunes, and iTunes users to iPods.
Technology website Ars Technica reports that Danish Minister Of Culture Brian Mikkelsen has now announced that he intends to put forward similar legislation proposals to Denmark's parliament. Those proposals already reportedly have the support of Denmark's biggest telecommunications company TDC and Copenhagen based conglomerate Maersk, both of whom are competing in the digital music space.
That announcement puts more pressure on Apple regarding how they respond to the new laws coming out of Europe. Despite Apple's claims last week that the French proposals will aid piracy, the music industry, themselves concerned about the blockage to interoperability caused by the computer firm's business model, are unlikely to support Apple in their opposition of France's new digital media laws.
Some insiders say Apple will respond by closing down its iTunes operation in France, but that radical measure is less practical if other European countries adopt the same laws. Also the EU might make such a move unwise - either because French politicians may lobby for pan-European adoption of their proposals, or because existing EU rules would make it difficult for Apple to close down its operations in France but continue to operate elsewhere within the Union.