French Tell Apple, Sony, Microsoft: Open Up

"The French parliament has backed plans to give consumers more choice over music downloads from the internet. MPs backed a draft law to force Apple, Sony and Microsoft to share their proprietary copy-protection systems by 296 to 193 votes. The aim is to ensure that digital music can be played on any player, regardless of its format or source.... Currently most online stores lock consumers into their own downloading systems and players, such as with Apple's iTunes and its iPod. The French bill says that proprietary copy-protection technologies must not block interoperability between different systems." - BBC

iTunes not only leading the world in digital downloads, accounting for 70% of music sales globally, but it is also the most-used point of access for podcasts, and although hard data is hard to come by, the f1 podcast makes this assessment:

"iTunes is by far the most popular podcatcher among my listeners (currently over 27,000 hits compared to under 5,000 for iPodder Lemon, the next most popular client)."

It remains to be seen whether this French law will translate into the kind of EU-wide antitrust pressure that Microsoft has experienced, or impact the UK.