Is Zune the Rotary Phone of Music Players?
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Since the Zune’s pre-announcement we’ve been hearing rather a lot about the so-called sharing feature, and how it interacts with Zune’s DRM. The EFF has focused attention on the Zune being a closed shop, even when it comes to Microsoft’s own protected Windows Media format, “PlaysForSure” [Ed; "Won'tPlayForSure", surely?]:
Microsoft’s Zune will not play protected Windows Media Audio and Video purchased or “rented” from Napster 2.0, Rhapsody, Yahoo! Unlimited, Movielink, Cinemanow, or any other online media service. That’s right — the media that Microsoft promised would Play For Sure doesn’t even play on Microsoft’s own device. Buried in footnote 4 of its press release, Microsoft clearly states that “Zune software can import audio files in unprotected WMA, MP3, AAC; photos in JPEG; and videos in WMV, MPEG-4, H.264″ — protected WMA and WMV (not to mention iTunes DRMed AAC) are conspicuously absent.
and takes a dig or two at Microsoft fumbling over the inevitably disingenuous line that all manufacturers draw on IP: ripped content sells devices, but they can’t get mainstream content unless they toe the line on DRM:
[Postscript: In an interview with Engadget, Microsoft Zune architect J Allard pointed out that Zune has sufficient video format support, in part because there's "Lots of DVD ripping software out there that encodes to those formats, so the most popular formats out there, whether it's MPEG-4 or H.264, we'll support those." Gee, he isn't suggesting that his business model benefits from customers using tools like DeCSS or Handbrake to evade the DRM on DVDs, right? Especially since Microsoft is furiously trying to squash the FairUse4WM tool, that would seem rather hypocritical.]
Meanwhile, the Zune will wrap all music it contains in DRM to prevent sharing - even creative commons licensed or otherwise freely transferable music - because Microsoft wants to protect music purchased online, and says it can’t distinguish between music that was, and music that wasn’t. Medialoper points out that the Zune will force its users to violate their CC licenses. Credit to Medialoper for coining a new catchphrase of our time - created by the unholy alliance of DRM and sanctioned sharing - Viral DRM.
All of which has me thinking about the walled-garden technologies of olde - the POTS telephone system and its evil spawn, the rotary phone. Functional for a while, but only when there were no alternatives, and once there were, quickly forgotten. And of course, everyone’s favourite, except when it came to actually buying them, Sony music players based on DAT. Given the paucity of sharing that the Zune actually allows, this seems to me like a significant technological step backward. And, with thanks to J Allard for raising the opportunity to draw the analogy, has me whether it will turn out to be the rotary phone of music players.
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“Zune will force its users to violate their CC licenses”
Total BS! That’s like saying McDonalds will force it’s customers to get fat and die. Nobody is forced to do squat. The customer has the liability to honor the CC license. How can you say they are forced to violate it? Just don’t send the file at all, geez. Don’t eat the Big Mac and and get fat. People have choices.
I think it’s pretty obvious from the post what my words mean, Zune scene. No one is forcing anyone to buy a Zune, of course (thank god!), and no one is forcing any Zune owner to buy CC music, and no one is forcing any Zune owner with CC music to share it. The point obviously was that under MS DRM scheme, if you have a Zune, and have CC music on it, and want to share it, you have to violate the CC license to do that. Pretty obviously the point, I would have thought.
The real point of course is that MS could have accommodated the customer’s own music (CC or otherwise) as opposed to music purchased through the Zune marketplace, but hasn’t bothered to. This probably because it thinks it needs to do this to avoid Grokster-type liability, probably also because it’s in a desperate rush to get the Zune out for Christmas, but also probably because it doesn’t really care (it probably thinks many people won’t know about the issue, and knows some people who know about it won’t care).
So I think a better (but admittedly still imperfect) analogy than yours is a car manufacturer that is selling a car that doesn’t comply with a California licensing requirement - perhaps because it’s too expensive for the manufacturer to comply with it. Buyers don’t have to drive the cars in California, of course - no one is being forced to violate the law. But the car manufacturer knows many will. It’s just made an economic decision that it doesn’t care, being happy to shift that risk to the buyer. Happily, as you point out, there are alternatives, and no doubt many buyers will take them instead.
Interesting side note - I don’t know when the DRM is added, but I suspect it might be added by the desktop software when the music is synced to the Zune, or perhaps (and I think this is more likely), when the music is imported into the app. Which means that Zune buyers perhaps can’t even import music into the app, or perhaps even transfer it to the Zune, without infringing the CC license.