Yesterday BoingBoing’s Cory Doctorow rightly called out Apple’s hypocritical “state-sponsored piracy” response to France’s new law against vendor lock-in.
One of the big reasons the iPod took off is because of Napster and other file-sharing services. People suddenly had huge collections of digital music on their computers, but no easy way to take it with them when they left the house.
Now it appears Steve Jobs himself once agreed with the thinking behind the French law, which is to protecting consumers’ right to move content they buy from one device to another.
In a 2002 interview with the Wall Street Journal, reprinted in part at Macworld, Jobs said:
“If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own.”
Compare that to what French lawmakers had to say this week:
“The consumer must be able to listen to the music they have bought on no matter what platform,” Martin Rogard, an adviser at the French Culture Ministry, told the Financial Times.
Image courtesy of wpc-fr.net.
(Via SiliconBeat)
Leander Kahney is the editor and publisher of Cult of Mac.
Leander is a longtime technology reporter and the author of six acclaimed books about Apple, including two New York Times bestsellers: Jony Ive: The Genius Behind Apple’s Greatest Products and Inside Steve’s Brain, a biography of Steve Jobs.
He’s also written a top-selling biography of Apple CEO Tim Cook and authored Cult of Mac and Cult of iPod, which both won prestigious design awards. Most recently, he was co-author of Cult of Mac, 2nd Edition.
Leander has been reporting about Apple and technology for nearly 30 years.
Before founding Cult of Mac as an independent publication, Leander was news editor at Wired.com, where he was responsible for the day-to-day running of the Wired.com website. He headed up a team of six section editors, a dozen reporters and a large pool of freelancers. Together the team produced a daily digest of stories about the impact of science and technology, and won several awards, including several Webby Awards, 2X Knight-Batten Awards for Innovation in Journalism and the 2010 MIN (Magazine Industry Newsletter) award for best blog, among others.
Before being promoted to news editor, Leander was Wired.com’s senior reporter, primarily covering Apple. During that time, Leander published a ton of scoops, including the first in-depth report about the development of the iPod. Leander attended almost every keynote speech and special product launch presented by Steve Jobs, including the historic launches of the iPhone and iPad. He also reported from almost every Macworld Expo in the late ’90s and early ‘2000s, including, sadly, the last shows in Boston, San Francisco and Tokyo. His reporting for Wired.com formed the basis of the first Cult of Mac book, and subsequently this website.
Before joining Wired, Leander was a senior reporter at the legendary MacWeek, the storied and long-running weekly that documented Apple and its community in the 1980s and ’90s.
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12 responses to “Four Years Ago, Steve Jobs May Have Backed French Law”
The difference being “all other devices that you own†and ” music they have bought on no matter what platform.â€ÂÂ
So if you can burn a CD with music that you bought from iTunes, and then reimport it as a unprotected MP3 file, what is the big deal? Isn’t this how Jobs et. al. convinced the big 5 that there was protection while giving a slight wink to the users?
Though it may be hypocritical, I think Jobs still has the right to be pissed at this new law. I mean, it was only four years ago that he gave that interview, but technology changes, and circumstances change. He has to do whats best for Apple at the time.
Well, of course Jobs has changed his tune. Back in 2002, Apple was just coming off of life-support, the iPod was just one of many, but not the 800 lbs. Gorilla, of digital music players, and iTunes was no big deal. Things have changed. And now Apple has a majority market share that it needs to defend. This isn’t about philosphy, it’s about profits, something very important for a publically traded company.
As an Apple shareholder, I want Jobs & Co. to do everything they can to maximize Apple’s, and thus my, return on investment. In 2002, that was just getting iPod sales going. Now, it’s own the digital entertainment market.
PLEASE stop block justifying your website copy… very very baaaaaad idea.
What hypocracy? Everyone knows what Steve meant was “If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other APPLE MANUFACTURED devices that you own.â€ÂÂ