Tim Lee

Played You for Sure

This week Microsoft released details about Zune, Microsoft’s purported iPod killer. Techdirt is reporting that Zune won’t be compatible with Microsoft’s previous digital rights management technology, which, ironically enough, was branded “Plays for Sure.” Microsoft’s marketing folks might want to look into changing that. In addition, nothing seems to have come of rumors that Microsoft would “buy out” iTunes users by giving them copies of the songs they’d previously purchased at the iTunes store. Which is really peculiar, given that it would have been a big win for both the labels and Microsoft.

I doubt Steve Jobs is losing over sleep over this.

September 16, 2006 | Comments |

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    It strikes me, Tim, that Zune's 'three plays, three days' sharing must have been approved by the RIAA- it is clearly a looser standard for sharing than what the RIAA has permitted Apple to do. So I'd guess that Apple is losing some sleep over this- not the Zune per se, but over the indications that the RIAA is willing to grant non-iTunes vendors greater latitude in an effort to keep Apple in check.
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    Typicla MS product--sounds completely lame, and a total cave-in to the content providers. But MS is really conducting a top-down marketing approach with this product--they want it to be a hit with the content owners, not the users.
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    Michael Robertson posted on his website:
    http://michaelrobertson.com/archive.php?minute_...>
    "The danger with DRM is that it gives corporations the power to change the rules of the game anytime they think it will benefit their bank account, even if that means zuning your music library. There's no better illustration of this than when the world's largest technology company curtails support of their OWN technology abandoning their hardware partners, music stores and most importantly customers they convinced to use Plays for Sure. Microsoft will surely claim that they'll continue to support Plays for Sure, but their actions speak louder than their words - it won't even play on their own music players! Plays for Sure is dead for sure and it's going to its grave with hundreds of millions of dollars worth of music fans' digital music crammed into the coffin."(empahis added)


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