Slashdot Mirror
Zune's Viral DRM Will Violate Creative Commons
lopy writes "Medialoper has noted that Zune's highly touted wireless file sharing will infect otherwise unprotected audio files with proprietary DRM. In cases where users are sharing songs covered by any of the Creative Commons licenses, this would be a clear violation of those license. From the CC FAQ: 'If a person uses DRM tools to restrict any of the rights granted in the license, that person violates the license.' It'll be interesting to see how and if the CC community responds." An anonymous reader wrote in mentioning a post to the Crave blog, relatedly exploring how the Zune stacks up to the iPod.
Fool me once, shame on me.
With DRM, Microsoft, RIAA, MPAA, and the usual cast of characters, it's "fool us a billion times...", it doesn't seem to matter, they keep throwing this kind of foolishness our way.
I guess the good news about this is the silly layer of DRM adds that more assuredness the Zune will be a miserable also ran in the market.
Users will get over the cool factor quickly, especially when the favorite song someone shared with them stops playing three days later. Yeah, there's probably documentation. Who reads it?
I don't see any ads for this device touting "share your tunes three times or three days, whichever comes first!" to catchy music. If I were to buy one of these (not) anticipating the magic of wireless sharing I would return it immediately on learning the fine (hwah?, not so fine?) print.
And, what other silly DRM is layered? I wonder (and almost suppose) Microsoft further encumbers shared songs a la making a song shared by someone unshareable by a sharee...
And, if Microsoft wanted to limit the listening, why so Draconian a limit? WTF? If a tune has any texture, any depth, any insight at all, it can take a lot more than three listens to develop an ear for that song. Too bad. Clearly this is not the era to be exposing listeners to Beethoven or Mozart.
As for my part, I now freely distribute copies of music from my collection to any who want them. I always verbalize the disclaimer they must buy if they like with a wink and a nod. I know now my good faith efforts before were empty gestures. (I even refused in the past to let my daughters make tapes of CDs for their friends, not any more...)
This is all really too bad, because it could be interesting use of technology. Not really my cup of tea (I've posted on this earlier, responses to my post convinced me there could be some market for this).
It's time to sue Microsoft for contibutory and vicarious infringement for doing this. Use the Grokster case as precedent. It's time the pro-DRM side got a taste of their own legal medicine.
The FAQ on the article basically does not allow a person to distribute a creative commons work that has been modified with DRM. Microsoft is doing no such thing. While their software will DRM-ify the song, it is the end user who is using the Zune as the mechanism of distribution. Clearly the works are available without the DRM, as the original user got the song in the first place. This seems to me to be an issue of a transport layer. If you know Microsoft will always DRM, and you try to use this mechanism to distribute CC'd licensed works, then perhaps you are the one who is in violation of the license.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
From the sound of the article, this is only implemented for the wireless sharing feature and not for all media, so you'll still be able to send these files to each other, unencrypted, with no adverse effects. It just won't work over wireless.
As for the CC-licensed content, the original data is still available, unhampered by DRM.
It's unfortunate that the link to the previous analysis is broken in the article. For something like this, it really helps to have more facts.
Ok let me take a poll
How many people will buy a zune ?
Ok of those select few, how many have CC content they are or were planning to put on the zune ?
Is anyone's hand up? Furthermore, it would be the end users that would violate the CC license, not microsoft. I can violate the licence today with Microsoft Media Player. Why doesn't CC sue microsoft for allowing users to violate the licese that way? Zune just makes it easier to violate the licese CC doesn't have a say and doens't ahve a leagal leg to stand on. The whol anti DRM thing on slashdot has gotten way out of hand. There are many artists who awnt this kind of protection for their music. They are stuggling to make ends meet and tak to fans who tell them they burned copies of their cd's and gave them to all their friends. These bands are on INDEPENDANT labels, not covered by RIAA. Its an option, let people choose to use it or not use it. Microsoft added a feature that previously didn't exist amoung mp3 players and wanted to make sure that no one used it to violate the artists rights. It just means that you will have to distrubute CC licences files some other way, possibly the same way you are doing right now!
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
I appologise for not remembering where I saw/heard this but in the last 24 hours I saw a comment that made a lot of sense with regards to the Zune and the 3 day/play rule. This feature is not meant as a convenience of the user so they can share their music with others. Its a feature of the marketing people so they can virally encourage you to buy more.
Imagine a bunch of kids at school. The first one buys a track from the Zune store, shares it around to all his/her friends, creates interest in the cool tune. And then *poof* the music vanishes. So what do all the friends do? The head off to the Zune store to buy buy buy.
From that perspective the feaure makes a great lot of sense.
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
That sort of "one generation only" DRM is just as broken as all other types of it; it suffers from the same terminal flaws, namely that you can't well restrict the copying of data once it's been moved into the digital realm, where copying is inherent to even the most basic manipulations of the data (i.e., moving it from one place to another).
Just because it doesn't prevent all copies doesn't make it any less flawed from an inherent information-theory and cryptological standpoint, and in the long run I think it's doomed to failure. The only question is whether, in failing, it manages to take down a few otherwise-good formats with it.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
They're called statutory damages. You know, like the RIAA sues for. You don't think they are claiming that the damage to them caused by someone uploading a single song is really $150,000 do you?
Ah, just like that disclaimer (almost verbatim) protected p2p vendors from getting their pants sued off. Oh wait: it didn't. Oh well, maybe MS need to just obey the law that they're so keen on getting others to obey.
Pirate Party UK
I download a file on P2P, I listen to it three times, decide it's crap and don't bother to buy a copy - that's illegal...?
Am I the only one who sees the hipocracy here?
Maybe the RIAA will sue Microsoft but I'm not holding my breath. The last thing the RIAA wants is somebody to actually go to court and fight their trumped up charges.
No sig today...