Wired News is reporting that France may deal a blow by legal means to the firm hold by which Apple's iTunes Music Store keeps the digital music industry within its grip.

Currently, Apple relies on encoding the digital files sold via its online iTunes Music Store in such ways as to prevent those digital files from being played in other digital music players. It's a one-store, one-track, one-person, one-player model that has kept an overwhelming percentage of the profits in the hands of one company.

France is not planning on a direct confrontation with Apple, rather it would draft a law to legalize the "cracking" of digital formats. Make it legal to change those .m4a files into .mp3 files, and make it illegal to code those files to prevent such an occurrence, and France would have pushed Apple into a bit of a corner.

Conventional wisdom would see Apple either a) stop selling digital music in France altogether (an unlikely scenario), or b) make all of its files universally accessible. Of course, that ignores the possible c) scenario in which Apple keeps its alternative file extensions, but stops coding them as to inhibit being "cracked." It would be minimal work for Apple, and would force consumers to go through the trouble of figuring out how to convert the files in whatever two-, three-, or four-step processes they can come up with.

It should be noted, France is not attempting to start a legal, free-for-all digital music wonderland. The drafted law would also fine individuals approximately $40 for an illegally downloaded track, somewhat more than $150 for sharing that track, and should you write the software to run a file-sharing network, you would fork over more than $300,000 in fines. Not to mention the prison time.

It's a come-all, use-all (legally!) attitude France is hoping to take towards digital copyright, and one to which its worth watching Apple's reaction.