French MPs are examining measures that would force the sharing of copy-protection software with the aim of ensuring that any music can be played on any player regardless of format or source:
The French bill says that proprietary copy-protection technologies must not block interoperability between different systems.
Rightly, the French are worried about monopolies. DRM is cast [...]

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Michael Geist reports that Sony are facing another class action suit over their PC-damaging DRM. It looks like they were in no rush to protect consumers in Canada.
I wonder how well they did in the UK?

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The following notes were taking during the inquiry and they are my best attempts at keeping up with what was said. They are not verbatim notes - in fact, the APIG committee is going to publish a transcript of the sessions, at which point you’ll be able to compare and contrast, and see just how [...]

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The Open Rights Group has been asked by the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group to attend its oral evidence gathering session on 2 February. ORG will send three representatives - the maximum allowed - who will be questioned by MPs.
Other groups that have been invited include:

Society for Computers and Law
British Library
Libraries Archives Copyright Alliance (LACA)
FFII-UK
Share [...]

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The BBC have put together a virtual panel of music industry representatives to answer your questions on DRM, downloading, and any other topic you feel important. The music panel comprises:

Brad Duea, president of Napster, once the scourge of the music industry and now one of the largest legal music download retailers.
Peter Jamieson, executive chairman of [...]

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The white paper that we prepared before Christmas for the All Party Parliamentary Internet Group’s public inquiry into digital rights management is now up on the ORG wiki.
You might also like to read Kevin Marks’ submission. If you submitted a paper, please let me know so that we can link to it, or feel [...]

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And anything else that doesn’t enforce DRM. Astonishing. Read more about it.

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“john” writes, in a comment to an earlier post:
data retention; the LIBE report is being voted on the 12th and all the Parliamentary groups meet on Tuesday to decide their positions. There is some interesting new stuff on Statewatch about recent discussions after the JHA Council on the 1st for those that are interested in [...]

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The All Party Parliamentary Internet Group (APIG) has launched a public inquiry into DRM and is looking for written evidence from anyone interested in copyright and digital rights management. Submissions must be emailed to APIG before 21 December 2005, which gives us, and you, less than a month to prepare and submit our statements.
From the [...]

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Point 1: Does DRM distort traditional tradeoffs in copyright law?
What damage does DRM do? Who are the winners and losers in DRM? How does this affect you?

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