Having taken almost as long to write as it took the new Wembley Stadium to be built, there may yet be further changes (yes. more) to France's much reported new copyright laws after the country's Constitutional Council raised concerns.
As previously reported, the new French copyright legislation has been through a number of drafts already, with some drafts including extreme measures in terms of the fines and sentences for illegally sharing music online, whether or not the use of P2P networks is illegal at all, and what powers government should have to force technology firms to share their DRM technologies with others.
The Council's concerns about the new laws included the suggestion that moves to force technology firms to share their DRM 'codecs' with others would violate existing constitutional law on property protection. Moves to force interoperability into the French digital music space had already been watered down when the two houses of the French Parliament clashed on the issue - the Upper House giving technology firms a get out clause that said they could use proprietary DRM software, and keep it secret from their competitors, providing the artists and labels who licence music to their download platforms agree to such practices.
Apple were most opposed to the forced interoperability proposals, so for them that get out option would be very helpful - because given the dominance of Apple's iTunes in this digital music space it is unlikely many artists would object to their music being sold in a proprietary file format. However, the French Constitutional Council now suggests that making Apple share its codecs at all, oblivious of the opinions of artists and labels, would be unconstitutional.
Given these and other Council concerns (including concerns that the fines being proposed for illegal file sharing are too low), the new laws will now have to be reviewed afresh by the French Parliament. What such a review would involve, and how long it would take, is not clear at this time.