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.

Comments

Contributory and Vicarious Infringement

[russotto]

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.

I don't know if Microsoft is liable here...

[nebaz]

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.

Such a crazy story

[Bill, Shooter of Bul]

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!

Marketing tool not Listener tool

[OzPeter]

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.

Re:fool me once...

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

The RIAA is not a law enforcement group, hell they're not even part of the government. They can't send you to jail. They can call the Feebs on you or take you to court seeking damages. That's it.

The **AAs love how people think that they're law enforcement. They encourage people to think that by wearing those stupid "FBI" knockoff "**AA" windbreakers.

Re:Sued for millions!! Class Action!!!

[PeterBrett]

"Sued for millions?" You have to prove damages. What are the damages here in monetary terms? Zero.

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?

2. much more likely, MS would just add a disclaimer telling the user, "The sharing feature is NOT to be used to share CC files" (like the various DVD/CD copying programs have a disclaimer, "This software is not to be used to violate the copyright of protected works").

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.

Re:fool me once...

[MojoStan]

its no big deal with Apple because they don't put any DRM on any MP3s and never have...

You can rip CDs all day long with iTunes to MP3s or AACs... and not get a bit of DRM on those files.

Heck you can even rip to Apple Loseless mp4 without DRM... but I can share a MP4 with my friends all day long and they can make copies and put it on their iPods if they wanted.

I think people are misunderstanding (or spreading FUD about) Microsoft's plans with DRM and music shared between Zune players. Windows Media Player only adds DRM to ripped tracks if it's set up to do this (you set this up during installation/first run). If you accidently set up WMP to add DRM to ripped files (it used to be the default), then here's the instructions to disable this: How can I rip files to my computer without copy protection?

From the articles I've read so far (TFA for this story has been Slashdotted), it sounds like Zune will add DRM to files that are wirelessly shared with other Zune players, not to the DRM-free files you transfer from the Zune software (WMP 11?) to the Zune. Adding DRM to your shared, but intitially DRM-free, files may sound like a crap move, but do you think any player (including the iPod) can get away with allowing direct player-to-player copying without adding DRM? This would be similar to file "sharing" like P2P, but on a smaller scale. In the paranoid RIAA's eyes, people could be adding copyrighted music to their players even if they didn't own the original CD.

but I can share a MP4 with my friends all day long and they can make copies and put it on their iPods if they wanted.

But can you make a direct transfer from iPod to iPod? Can you easily transfer a DRM-free MP4 file from your iPod to all of your friends' computers? I'd be surprised if the RIAA allowed this.