I get a little annoyed by governments that try to bully people for no good reason. Three examples came to my attention this week, two related to Apple Computer and one related to Australian television…
- BusinessWeek reported on August 2 that Scandinavian regulators are trying to pressure Apple to make it possible for music downloaded from Apple’s iTunes service to be played on non-Apple mp3 players.
- CNet reported on July 31 that French regulators have been trying to pull the same stunt. Although they have thrown out some laws that allow people to reverse engineer competing DRM (digital rights management) systems to enable interoperability between different music systems, they still have a DRM licensing authority that has the power to force companies to publically disclose information that other companies would need to provide interoperability.
Now look, personally I’m no fan of Apple’s business model – that’s a big part of the reason that I choose to use a Creative mp3 player and to download music from Walmart.com. But Apple’s business is Apple’s business. If they want to create a control point, that’s just good business sense (for them). Part of my own job is to architect control points for the company I work for. So I applaud Apple’s strategic intelligence, even if as a consumer I dislike the lack of flexibility that it provides to me personally. But hey, Apple don’t owe me anything – I’m not a shareholder. Someone needs to let the Europeans know that high quality portable digital music may be many things, but a fundamental human right isn’t one of them.
Ok, that’s the first rant for today. Number two -
- The Sydney Morning Herald reports today that the Australian government is criticising Channel 7 for not showing the Bledisloe Cup rugby match live in Victoria and South Australia. They note -
“From next year the Government is introducing a “use-it or lose-it” scheme for the anti-siphoning list, which gives free-to-air networks first dibs on rights for more than 1300 sporting events. The whole system will be reviewed in 2009.”
Why exactly does the government think this is any of their business? And snce when is free rugby a fundamental human right? I love rugby. I watched the match that they are arguing about here. I paid for it and downloaded it from the Internet. And anyone in Victoria or South Australa could have paid to watch it on Foxtel pay TV.
Who needs the ALP? Socialism is alive and well in the Australian Liberal Party.