France Lays Smack Down on iPod The French Government voted yesterday to force Apple to make iTunes song downloads work on all players. This effectively cracks Apple's effective monopoly in France, and is no doubt making Steve Jobs resort to some sort of black magic against all Gaulic legislators.

But it may not be a bad thing.

Don't get me wrong; I love my iPod like and overachieving child. But I think part of Apple's charm is that it doesn't operate like predatory Microsoft. An excellent column in Wired suggest that as Apple moves into digital content provision- not just music, but TV and movies- it may start to take on distinctly unpleasant Microsoft monopoly characteristics. Putting some cracks into Apple's dominance of downloadable content now may make for a healthier, friendlier corporation in the future. And, as a tasty peripheral benefit, I can continue to be smug about using a Mac for years...nay, decades...to come.  ¶ 4:27 a.m.