French Revolution against Apple's iMonopoly

France is not a country usually noted for vigorous advocacy of free markets, but it has struck a blow for open competition, albeit at an American cultural imperialist. French MPs have voted last week to force Apple’s iTunes online music store to cease its practice of prohibiting its downloads from playing on anything other than the company’s own iPods portable music players. Apple may now seek to withdraw iTunes from the France, but if this decision gains momentum through the European Commission it will face a much bigger problem, which might well force them to open iTunes up to competing devices.

Apple and its enthusiasts have always looked to cast the company in the role of the underdog we should root for: the plucky, stylish, innovator David against the grey, monolithic, bullying Goliaths (IBM in the 80s, Microsoft today). Yet in one area where Apple is dominant, it stands condemned of the same brand of abuses as Microsoft. Perhaps this merely reflects a similar trend to Apple's decision to switch to Intel microprocessors traditionally used in Windows PCs for its machines: different on the outside, same on the inside.

A market controlled by one or a small number of companies can lead to benefits such as productivity gains which can be passed on to consumers and global standards of goods and services, but can also stifle innovation, reduce choice and lead to monopolistic pricing and anti-competitive policies such as Apple’s iTunes-on-iPod-only policy. The invisible hand of the market still needs the guiding hand of government regulation to ensure consumers get the best deal.