French Government Lobbied to Ban Free Software

[Alex Hudson]

On Thu, 2005-12-01 at 10:29 +0000, Rui Miguel Silva Seabra wrote:
> Imagine you use Firefox to download a DRM'ed Windows Media Video file.
> Firefox would have to respect the copy prohibition embedded in that .WMV
> file, if it doesn't, it would be illegal to use it.
> 
> Now imagine Firefox DOES respect the copy prohibition. Since Firefox is
> Free Software, it can be modified so it WON'T respect the prohibition.
> As such, it would be illegal to use it.

I must be being stupid, because I still can't see the practical problem
- my Firefox/media player/whatever already does respect DRM, in so far
as I can't access DRM'd media (as far as I know), and the EUCD has
already made it an offence to bypass DRM mechanisms. 

Does this French proposal go further in some way I don't understand?
Does it apply somehow to works that aren't protected by DRM, or extend
DRM? Is the default of "this is DRM'd, therefore no access is possible"
not good enough somehow?

Apologies if I've missed the point of the problem ;o) 

Cheers,

Alex.