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.
Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)
Ick (Score:2, Interesting)
This isn't why artists license their works using CC, and it's the same BS that the RIAA tries to enforce.
CC licenses exist to protect against large-scale systematic explotiation by commercial entities or other organizations. To say that an individual is somehow breaking the license by playing a song over a wireless interface is counter-productive.
Does it really wrap non-WMA files? (Score:4, Interesting)
Does it really do that? Anyone have a source?
Re:Contributory and Vicarious Infringement (Score:4, Interesting)
Microsoft would not be doing anything wrong.
You know 'wrong' and 'illegal' are not synonyms, right?
The person who distributes the CC-licensed work would be breaking the terms of the license...
The contributory copyright violation in the grokster case was that they knew or expected that people would be using their technology to violate copyright and made a profit off of it. MS is in exactly the same boat. making three copies of a song for random people in a wireless net is almost certainly illegal copyright violation and MS is making money facilitating it. Take em to court RIAA!
Third Party firmware... (Score:2, Interesting)
In this case, possibly the only way to survive this player may be a community produced firmware replacement. Its been done for the ipod and many other devices already.
If not then there are always the post-Christmas ebay auctions...
Re:Contributory and Vicarious Infringement (Score:2, Interesting)
How about when someone manages to kill the DRM? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm now of the belief... (Score:3, Interesting)
On the other hand, someone will find a way to hack a better , more open OS onto it, using it's hardware capabilities. And they will have a hit.
Or MS will abandon it and whoever is doing the OEM manufacture of the hardware will sell it to a company wiloling to put an open OS on it.
I can always dream and hope.
Bloody theft, that's what it is (Score:2, Interesting)
This is no less than vandalism and theft of potentially free music. What about private recordings which is without the user's consent mangled and will be unusable in three days? A worst-case scenario is when the clean audio file is deleted because "someone else has a backup of it".
This just have to flop. The average user can't be so stupid that s/he accepts this humbug.
Microsoft *had* to use this DRM.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:ok so? (Score:4, Interesting)
Let me give you an idea of what my Minidisc life was like for about 5 years:
The device is capable of so many uses. You can record, you can play, you can run with it, you can hook it up to a million sound systems, etc. etc. etc. But the software is designed with keen observation from the lawyers in the company. Many of the features that you, in your sweet heart, KNOW are there are disabled. Recording and then copying are severely restricted. Getting music onto the damn thing takes the effort equivalent to climbing a mountain.
Long story short, it's a gallant horse with strong legs in a tight and painful harness. Severely limited in its movement, the animal withers.
The wireless component of the Zune give it immense potential to dethrone the Ipod. But, we all know that DRM and MS's history will give us a scenario much like the one I consistently experienced as a Minidisc fan.
That's why I have an Ipod.
Re:Such a crazy story (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Contributory and Vicarious Infringement (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Contributory and Vicarious Infringement (Score:4, Interesting)
Oh the sweet irony, indies hitting MS with the exact same argument the RIAA used against Napster & Grokster.
"Your honor, the federal courts have upheld that despite the substantially non-infringing use of a system, a companies encouragement of people to trade music files makes them accountable for the infringement of their clients.(re Napster & Grokster) We understand that the defendant is claiming that their distibution method of wrapping files in DRM & time limiting usage makes the action fall under fair use, however we humbly direct the courts attention to the [insert number of CC songs available] songs liscensed for distribution under the Creative Commons liscense. The actions of the defendant place their users in direct violation of the terms of this liscense, and as such, MS, by encouriging the users of Zune products to violate the liscense - and thus copyright law as they no longer have a legal copy of the music, is a direct contributor to the copyright infringment of it's users. We feel that the damage done to our clients reaches into the $[asshat number with no relationship to reality] and so ask MS to pay them $[even higher number] to cover our clients losses, their emotional distress, and legal fees. We additionally request an injunction prohibiting MS from further enabling this gross violation of copyrite law."
The beauty of that is that the CCL makes it absolutely clear that you are making your own copy only by accepting the conditions of the CC liscense. If you violate the liscense, you have just surrendered your right to continue owning the music you already downloaded. This is unlike the music industry that plays the "it's a product - wait, no, it's a liscense game". Here you clearly make & own your own copy under a liscense. Violate the terms of the liscense & you void your right to own the copied work => destroy the work or be in violation of copyright. I don't see MS touting this fact while they run around promoting Zune.
Re:I don't know if Microsoft is liable here... (Score:4, Interesting)
I see you've been modded funny. I hope that you were trying to be funny, because if this was a serious argument, it is astoundingly ineffective. If I grant you a license to my copyrighted work with the only restriction being that you are not allowed to copy it onto papyrus, you are bound by that term if you accept the copy. The only thing I can't do is restrict non-infringing copying or statutory fair uses, because Title 17 doesn't give me control over those in the first place. Other than that, I can pretty well impose whatever restrictions I like, let them be ever so arbitrary, silly and/or useless. "The work was readily available," is not an excuse.
As for the argument that being electronically encoded is itself an "implicit content lock," I invite you to convince a court that your ludicrous definition is correct. You could just as easily argue that writing in English is an encryption because not all people are literate in English, and you would be just as wrong.
Re:fool me once... (Score:3, Interesting)
From the perspective of a musician, I'm happy when people share copies of my band's album. If I could beam you a copy from across the room then I'd actually consider getting a wireless enabled music player! The point of recording music (for most musicans anyway) is so that people can enjoy it, not to turn a profit. Here... If you like it, then have it!
<spam> http://www.tentoomany.com/discography.html [tentoomany.com] </spam>
Re:Bloody theft, that's what it is (Score:3, Interesting)
Say the software wraps it in nice DRM packaging, which goes against your 'rules' for use of the music. Since the Zune did this automatically, acting on the behalf of Microsoft, which it was designed to do..wouldn't this mean you could sue them just as hard as they sue people that share music / reverse engineer software?
Re:Chinese Translation analogy (Score:4, Interesting)
Is Zune the problem, or the guy who put the CC file on his Zune player?
So who broke the law, the guy who translated it, the guy who paid for the translation, or the guy who bought the translation.
Zune = Junk (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:fool me once... (Score:3, Interesting)