French competition body rejects 'open iPod' claim

Posted on 11 Nov 2004 at 11:08

The French Competition Council has rejected Virgin France's claim that Apple's FairPlay technology should be licensed to other companies' online music stores.

FairPlay is the digital rights management (DRM) technology that enables paid-for downloads from Apple's iTunes Music Store to be played on an iPod and no other portable device, but more significantly prevents other stores's downloads from being played on iPods.

News.com reports that the council ruled that 'access to FairPlay DRM isn't indispensible to the development of legal platforms for the downloading of online music'. It added that there is no proven link between Apple's dominance of the hard-disk player market and perceived lack of competition between online stores.

Nonetheless, this debate seems set to continue. How long will it be before one of Apple's competitors decides to take it to a higher authority, such as the European Commission?

Virgin and Apple declined to comment on the report.

Author: Simon Aughton

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