News Archive for 06/03/17

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France amends authors' rights law

03/17, 4:30pm

France amends law

As of yesterday iTunes had escaped the French Authors Rights Law, which after heated debate was passed by France's National Assembly and left digital content distributors free to impose DRM restrictions on music sold online. Today, however, amendments to the bill would offer rivals access to the previously exclusive file formats which form the core of Apple's music business model, forcing the company to make its FairPlay DRM work with competing services and players, according to the Associated Press. Lawmakers in the lower house voted to approve the amended bill early today, and will hold another formal vote on Tuesday next week before sending the law on to the Senate for its final reading. While critics of the bill say legislators have no right to force Apple to share its proprietary format, consumer groups are arguing that customers will have real choice only if restrictions are lifted. "It's an essential condition for consumers and for the market itself," Julien Dourgnon said, a spokesman France's primary consumer organization, UFC-Que Choisir.

Podner 1.5 offers cropping feature

03/17, 4:00pm

Podner 1.5 released

Splasm Software today released Podner 1.5, an update to its iPod video processing application that includes a new cropping feature, as well as significant DV performance improvements. The update offers iMovie HD project support, better iPod compatibility when users customize their encoding settings, new preferences to enable/disable DV "deinterlacing," and some minor fixes. Podner boasts faster video clip preparation for iPods than QuickTime Pro's Movie to iPod 320 x 240 option, with users able to drag movie files to the Podner window and optionally tweak settings before starting file conversions. Version 1.5 also prompts for an output location before each process, and is available for free to registered users. The application is priced at $10 for new users.

DRM drains battery life

03/17, 2:00pm

DRM drains battery life

Digital Rights Management technology, such as Apple's FairPlay DRM used to protect tracks purchased from the iTunes Music Store, reduces battery life significantly on digital media players across the board. A recent CNET column compares various players from different companies, noting playback time while considering numerous factors such as backlight usage, track quality, and listening/viewing patterns. Music rented from Napster or Rhapsody subscription networks arrives in the WMA DRM 10 format, which "takes extra processing power to ensure that the licenses making the tracks work are still valid and match up to the device itself." CNET recently tested the Creative Zen Vision:M, which boasts a rated battery life of up to 14 hours or audio or four hours for video playback. Playing only MP3s, the Vision:M played for almost 16 hours, but upon playing back only WMA subscription tracks the player died just after 12 hours. Apple's iPod, by comparison, when playing only FairPlay AAC tracks, underperformed MP3 playback time by roughly eight percent.