sale of one should not be tied to that of the other. Politicians from several parties (among whom Alain Carayon and Richard Cazenave from the ruling right-wing UMP, François Bayrou, president of the center-right UDF) pushed amendments aimed at ensuring interoperability of DRM systems. These amendments were adopted by the Assembly at the very end of its reading of the law, on the night of March 16 to March 17. These amendments stated that: Providers of DRM systems should provide the necessary technical documentation to any party needing it to ensure that interoperability. In practice, this would mean that makers of software or hardware players could request information from providers of DRM-protected music or video in order for that music or video to be playable on their systems. The publication of the source code or technical documentation of systems implementing DRMs is not prohibited by the protection granted to DRMs. It is unclear, though, whether these clauses would apply to DRM providers who not choose to avail themselves of the specific legal protection that the law grants to DRMs. That is, it is unknown at this point whether a licence agreement clause claiming that no part of a system, format or protocol is deemed to implement a DRM could exempt DRM providers from having to provide interoperability information. These clauses proved controversial, mostly in the US press, where analyses provided by various interest groups claimed that they were directed at Apple's iTunes platform and their iPod players; some news sources even went as far as to nickname the DADVSI law the "French iTunes law". Some analysts claimed that they could force Apple to shut down iTunes for French customers, because Apple's business model ties iTunes content to the iPod player using the DRM system and the French market comprises a relatively small portion of Apple's overall sales. Apple claimed that the French copyright law amounted to "state-sponsored piracy". According to Apple, the proposed legislation would increase copyright piracy by making it easier for copyright pirates to download songs from iTunes in a generic format and then endlessly copy them for other users (the iTunes format, being proprietary, is more difficult to transfer to other media). This declaration supported the claims by free-software advocates and politicians who said that the protection of DRM initially envisioned would benefit makers of DRM systems by enabling them to prosecute competitors as facilitating piracy. Finally,