Zune's Viral DRM Will Violate Creative Commons 266
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.
Re:Does it really wrap non-WMA files? (Score:5, Informative)
The original source quoted is Forbes Magazine's article with direct quotes from Microsoft spokespersons, however, in reading that article [forbes.com] it seems to me to imply that only a subset of songs bought from MS's version of the ITunes store will be available for sharing and it implies that any other music simply won't be able to be shared at all, including Creative Commons works, although the wording lends itself to ambiguity.
Re:Contributory and Vicarious Infringement (Score:5, Informative)
I guess we just need a load of CC-licensed artists to form some kind of Association and pool their resources. I look forward to the first case being filed!
Don't hold your breath. My interpretation of MS's press release is that Creative Commons music will not be shared at all unless they are selling them through MS's online store and authorize it by opting in. Songs you rip yourself will not be sharable. This seems to be purely a marketing feature to advertise songs you bought to others and get them to buy them when they stop playing after 3 days. It will only work for songs bought from MS's store and whose publishers specified it to be sharable/advertising enabled.
Re:Does it really wrap non-WMA files? (Score:3, Informative)
From that article:
It sounds like it could be a case of Microsoft only caring about talking about the songs they are selling themselves, without explaining the details of what you can do with songs you get elsewhere.
It's worth discussing the possibility that it would adversely affect CC files or other files you obtained elsewhere, but I still think it's a little too much speculation to make it sound like it definitely will affect CC files. It sounds like nobody outside of MS (if even they know), knows whether it will affect non-Zune-store files.
Re:Contributory and Vicarious Infringement (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, they would be. If I release something under CC, then I have decided how I want people to discover my talents. No one else has any right to render my choice wrong, and the entity doing so in this case would not be the one Zune owner in Illinois visiting his one Zune owner friend in Wisconsin; neither of those people said "Let's put this DRM on this song." Microsoft, on the other hand, is the true source of the anti-CC DRM. So yes, it is MS who would get whacked in a lawsuit over any CC violations carried out by their Zune players.
Re:fool me once... (Score:3, Informative)
Considering the RIAA has no law enforcement powers...I'd just shut the door in their face after telling them to get the fuck off my property.
Re:Hrm. I guess I would never use the WiFi (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.zuneinsider.com/2006/09/answers_to_som
Here's what he says in answer to a question about this:
"I made a song. I own it. How come, when I wirelessly send it to a girl I want to impress, the song has 3 days/3 plays?" Good question. There currently isn't a way to sniff out what you are sending, so we wrap it all up in DRM. We can't tell if you are sending a song from a known band or your own home recording so we default to the safety of encoding. And besides, she'll come see you three days later. . "
Re:fool me once... (Score:5, Informative)
Umm... Well, its no big deal with Apple because they don't put any DRM on any MP3s and never have.
Their iTunes AAC files (which you purchase from their site) do have fairplay DRM on them but MP3s they are not. They are a completley different file format and are a different beast when it comes to lossey codecs.
You can rip CDs all day long with iTunes to MP3s or AACs (I don't know why you would want to rip to AAC but you can) and not get a bit of DRM on those files.
Heck you can even rip to Apple Loseless mp4 without DRM. Its just that only quicktime, iTunes, and iPods only have the patent codec for them, 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.
Re:fool me once... (Score:3, Informative)