French politicians have formally passed that previously reported watered down digital music legislation, which in theory forces technology companies to share their DRM codecs with their rivals, but which in practice doesn't.
As previously reported, the lower house of the French parliament proposed and passed new laws that would force technology firms to let their rivals sell music or players that utilise their DRM software - laws that would impact on a number of leading technology companies, but in particular Apple whose entire digital music business model is based on keeping their codec secret, and using IP laws to protect that secret.
After much lobbying from the technology firms, the upper house of the French parliament proposed and passed different laws, that did not oblige technology firms to open up their software to others. With such inconsistencies between the laws passed by the two houses, a committee of politicians have since been discussing ways to draft legislation that satisfies both houses - and that compromise was last week formally passed by both houses.
The result is a system where by technology firms can keep their proprietary DRM systems secret, providing the artists and labels whose music they sell say that that is OK. In theory this puts all the power regarding DRM into the hands of the artist community, but in practice it gives the power back to the technology firms who can force artists and labels to agree to their DRM policies, those artists and labels desperately needing to sell their music via the technology firms' download platforms.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is politics in action. Vive la revolution.