France and DRM...

I thought what France tried to push was really innovative. It realy tried to open the playing field with respect to DRM. Right now, the model is as follow:

• You either have a big audio offering (Launch.com, Napster, etc.) and no ipod

or

• You have an ipod but only one music vendor (itunes) to choose from

I don't think that's very good for the customer. I recently purchased an MP3 player for somebody I knew. What did I get? An Ipod of course. It's a great device. I also wanted to upgrade my own MP3 player, but I couldn't get myself to order an Ipod. Why? Because I wanted to also use the Yahoo Music Unlimited To Go service. So what is the closest thing to an Ipod I can get that will support this service? A Zen Vision:M device that is nearly twice the thickness as an Ipod? That's not very impressive.

I think compatibility and openess would be of great benefit to the me. I'm curious to see if the watered down version of the bill actually makes any difference in the end. I'm also curious to see if Apple would actually close their itunes store if they were forced to open up their standards. Maybe they would be forced to deploy an Ipod firmware that supported DRMed Windows Media content!

Posted under drm

Patents and patents...

Back in the 80's, if I remember correctly, there was a big war between Pepsi and Coke. I remember hearing someone argue that the end result wasn't that Pepsi or that Coke won, but it was that all the smaller vendors lost.

These patent wars are quite astounding. Let me preface my comments with the following information: I have helped some of my employers to file patents so I might be biased. Anyways, it's really hard to see who is really benefiting from all this. On one end, I can see the usefulness of patents. They do encourage research because they give an incentive to the person or entity doing the research that theire is something to be gained in taking those risks. On the other end, I can see how they can be used to threaten innovation and advancement.

For that matter, this is a bit like DRM. On one end, it can be used to encourage investment, on the other in can be used to stiffle creativity.

So I'm not sure what to think of the NTP v. RIM debate. While it's interesting to see who won between the two, what I really wonder is, did smaller players lose? RIM will survive this fight, but there definitely could be smaller players that won't take the risk of becoming a casualty in these patent wars.