The Mandelbear's Musings

Medialoper » Zune’s Big Innovation: Viral DRM

Unfortunately Zune’s wireless music sharing is turning out to be one of those features that seemed better when it was just a rumor. While Zune users will be able share music with friends, there’s a catch (isn’t there always). As Jim noted earlier, recipients of shared songs will only be able to listen to them three times or for three days, whichever comes first. It sort of sounds like a really bad tire warranty.

Zune accomplishes this amazingly stupid feat by wrapping shared music in a proprietary layer of DRM, regardless of what format the original content may be in. If Microsoft’s claims are to be believed, this on-the-fly DRM will be seamless and automatic - which must be some kind of first for Microsoft.

...and that DRM, in turn, violates the Creative Commons license or any other license that prohibits DRM in order to encourage sharing.

I note in passing that all my music is available under a CC(by-sa-nc) license, and I'd be delighted to be part of a class-action suit against Microsoft.

(From slashdot