A Copyright Cop In Every Zune

Mike writes "As if the Zune wasn't already crippled and unpopular enough, now comes a story indicating that Microsoft may build a 'Copyright Cop' into every Zune. A future update of the software for Microsoft's portable media player will likely include a 'feature' that will block unauthorized copies of copyrighted videos from being played on it. The president of digital distribution for NBC, J. B. Perrette, said the plan is to create 'filtering technology that allows for playback of legitimately purchased content versus non-legitimately purchased content.' Of course there's no way to tell legitimate content that you create from 'non-legitimate' content, so this looks like just another nail in the coffin of the Zune." Update: 05/08 20:50 GMT by T : From Microsoft employee Cesar Menendez comes this categorical denial of any such filtering mechanism.

Comments

Re:They exist.

[CRCulver]

An iPod does not require using iTunes. You can put Rockbox on an iPod and simply drag the music files directly onto the iPod mounted as a drive. There's also plenty of other programs that can read and write to an iTunes database.

Re:The New York Times says not to buy a Zune.

[dedazo]

You're missing the point. He's not annoyed at twitter because of "negative evaluation" or even the ever-hilarious "M$" thing that just never gets old. It's the fact that he's posted in this article with three different accounts already. Very soon now you're going to see three different people jump into the thread, agree with him and complain if there's any moderation he doesn't like.

Seriously, is there some sort of reality distortion field problem here where someone with seven or eight accounts that humps all over Slashdot shilling his own posts can happily get away with it, no repercussions? Screw the controls that this website has in place to prevent things like these, along with crapflooders, GNAA trolls and erotic stories about CmdrTaco and CowboyNeal?

There is a reason why his first two accounts are in negative karma hell, but he doesn't understand that people mod him down, not his opinions. As if criticizing Microsoft on Slashdot was reason to be modded down? People are tired of him, but he just blames everything on Microsoft, claims that anyone who disagrees with him "hates" him, and then proceeds to create seven or eight accounts, and reply to himself so that moderators think "wow, this gnutoo/inTheLoo/Erris/westbake/willeyhill/twitter/Mactrope fellow sure has a lot of friends who agree with him" and play the karma game to his full satisfaction.

Aside from my personal dislike of his "evangelism" style that does more harm than good to free software, that should not be allowed. I don't reply to myself pretending I'm someone else to see if I get modded up, I say what I think and I'm responsible for it. Within the community that is Slashdot, that means you are moderated up or down and deal with the consequences of that. The next time you find yourself getting stacked upon on a discussion thread by three people who sound exactly the same you'll see what the problem is with sockpuppets.

Anyway, it's just the internet, and some people take all this too seriously (probably including myself sometimes) but even here there are rules and an etiquette that people follow or things go the way of Kuro5hin and Digg.

(And now I'm sure he'll use one of those sockpuppets to mod me down like he's been doing the past few weeks with his gnutoo and inTheLoo accounts, which are the only ones that are not posting at zero or less for obvious trolling.)

Re:Nothing new there

[fullgandoo]

Microsoft has already denied this: http://www.news.com/8301-13860_3-9938650-56.html?tag=nefd.top But since this is slashdot, let's just ignore it while there is an opportunity for MS bashing.