Freedom files
The French Parliament has backed a bill to force digital music services to open up their proprietary formats and to make them interoperable. If it gets signed into law, Apple, Sony, MSN and the like will either have to make their systems open or shut down their stores. Who wants to make book on whether they’ll stay open?
I’ve bought an occassional iTunes file, but for the most part, I stay away from the service — I don’t like having to launch a specific application just to listen to a single file. (And no, I don’t own an iPod.) I also don’t like how you can browse stores of other countries but not buy anything from them. Such a missed opportunity to leverage a global market.