Zune’s Big Innovation: Viral DRM: Microsoft’s upcoming Zune will DRM your music before you can share it with anyone else, even if the music wasn’t DRMed in the first place.
[…] 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.
Zune vs. iPod: the battle begins: Fortune reviews the Zune against the iPod and the winner is...the iPod. But it's not as much of a runaway victory as you'd expect. The Zune did quite well in a couple areas, and, as Fortune notes, it's the first model out the door.…
Microsoft has truly lost their mind on this one. Either that, or they are in bed with the RIAA. I would say it's almost unbelievable, but we all know that it's not.