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Sony and Universal Prohibit Sharing Via Zune
Posted by
Zonk
on Fri Jan 19, 2007 10:56 PM
from the as-if-the-zune-didn't-have-enough-trouble-already dept.
from the as-if-the-zune-didn't-have-enough-trouble-already dept.
ack154 writes "Engadget has a story about Sony and Universal Music apparently denying Zune owners the ability to 'squirt' songs by certain artists to other Zune users. That's right, if you've actually purchased songs from the Zune marketplace and happen to run into another Zune owner, you're prohibited from sharing certain songs. From the article: 'In a non-scientific sampling of popular artists by Zunerama and Zune Thoughts, it looks like it's roughly 40-50 percent of artists that fall under this prohibited banner, and the worst news is that there's no warning that a song might be unsharable until you actually try to send it and fail.'"
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All Access Squirt Passes (Score:5, Funny)
Re:All Access Squirt Passes (Score:5, Funny)
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iPhone implied feature (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:iPhone implied feature (Score:5, Funny)
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So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why even bother including a transmission service if it isn't just limited to be barely useful, but not have it work at all for half of the songs you can legitimately get?
Re:So... (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, how many other logos [bdmonkeys.net] can you make look like a cat-butt?
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Re:So... (Score:5, Insightful)
Zune has a bigger screen and Wifi compared to Apple iPod of same price.
It has a stupid firmware OS or whatever that runs on it full of DRM.
If there is a hacked firmware upgrade that disables all the nastiness, would you buy it? If you could upload your entire mp3 collection to your zune and transfer files via wifi to other people without any limitations?
Just look at the Sony PSP.
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Re:It's Microsoft, not Sony (Score:5, Insightful)
The reason Microsoft have to have restrictions on wireless (or indeed any) transfers is because if they didn't, Sony, Universal and everyone else would not license their music to be sold on the Zune market place and the Zune would be dead in the water.
Do you think that Microsoft enjoy all this bad press and confusion the crippled wifi functionality is bringing them? What exactly is in it for them asides from the teeny tiny percentage of the few sales they might see after a users' trial runs out and they buy the track in question? They'd make more money by not bothering with restrictions in the first place because they'd shift more units.
The reason Apple haven't put out a wireless mp3 player isn't because Microsoft simply 'beat them to it', it is because if Apple did, they'd be subject to the same restrictions. They decided that it'd be better than to leave it out entirely than to risk leaving users with a negative experience after dealing with all the record industries' draconian bullshit.
Anyone who thinks the iPhone is going to allow them to transfer music around freely like Mircrosoft 'should' have done with the Zune is in for a rude awakening. The way things are looking with the iPhone, you'll be lucky if you can set one of your mp3s as a fucking ringtone.
The fact that you think they haven't carefully thought about ALL of this simply stuns me.
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What's that sound? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What's that sound? (Score:5, Funny)
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Take the statistic with a grain of salt. (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, both of 'em.
The chances of them meeting are far lower than the 40-50% chance of their "squirt" failing. Yet another unverifiable, speculative statistic.
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Re:What's that sound? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, that's "zijun" in Hebrew. Now you see the *real* reason for the product's name.
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The one place Apple gets it right. (Score:4, Insightful)
How do you want to be abused today? (Score:5, Funny)
--
U.S. government violence has stopped the centuries-long violence in Iraq and created a peaceful democracy. NOT!
Re:How do you want to be abused today? (Score:4, Insightful)
Its not as if Microsoft has a choice in this matter.
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Re:How do you want to be abused today? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Microsoft can't make the application work as advertised or disclosed, they should offer a different set of features.
This is the best evidence yet that this whole "squirting" business was invented by an uninformed marketing department, that wasn't aware of the real-world limitations Microsoft's partners were going to place on the system.
For example, I'm sure someone would love to sell a radio that shows album art, but if doing so requires an internet connection for the radio, and regular updates of radio schedules from a web service, and rights negotiations, and on, and on, and on, the someone might want to consider selling something that would actually work, as opposed to something that's got bullet points up the wazoo but doesn't.
It isn't MS's fault the music is restricted, any more than it's Apple's in their case, but Microsoft's implementation within its restrictions is broken, and not going to win it converts in the MP3 market. Given, of course, that they're really serious about taking a share of the MP3 player market, or if all this isn't some twisted "tactical" maneuver to "position" some "platform" for some reason known but to Chair-Man.
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Re:How do you want to be abused today? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd argue that it *is* Microsoft's fault to some degree. I can't think of any major technology company that's been going in for DRM as heavily as they have been. Even Sony was happy with a mere root kit for their DRM, and backed off when enough people complained; whereas in Vista MS has added not one but two levels of access *beyond* the formerly root-equivalent Administrator level to support their DRM schemes, and requires specialized hardware support right down to the silicon for HD content's DRM.
Microsoft has tremendous influence in the market, they could have done a lot to keep things relatively sane if they tailored their systems to the needs of their customers rather than the media industry. And, with just a little marketing savvy, they could have made a mint doing it as well, as Apple's phenomenal success with kinder gentler and more consistent DRM schemes has shown.
The media companies may be pushing this bullshit too hard to stop entirely, but the tech companies owe it to their shareholders as much as their customers to push back for solutions that are, if not entirely and ideally free, at least *usable*.
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Re:How do you want to be abused today? (Score:5, Interesting)
But even in the immediate sense, MS might have benefitted from showing a bit of spine.
Basically, Microsoft has chosen to:
1) put in stupid DRM features,
2) *and* watch as people continue to buy iPods because when they buy something form iTunes they don't have to guess which of a handful of DRM policies dictates how they can use a particular song,
3) *and* continue to not sell their devices at all.
The whole point of Microsoft's tanking of Plays for Sure in favor of Zune was supposed to be a smooth consistent user experience. Giving half the Sony and Universal tracks you sell different restrictions than the others without telling the buyer is *not* smooth or consistent. They'd have been better off just skipping those tracks altogether if needs be.
That's basically what Apple has done in that kind of situation with Sony in Japan and Austrailia. If a label doesn't want to deal with your terms, just launch without them, and if you start making money they'll cave in eventually. Sacrificing usability for one label's whims is a loosing proposition in the long run; I would think that's especially true when you're trying to buy your way into the market, as Microsoft seems to be in this case.
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Re:How do you want to be abused today? (Score:5, Interesting)
And if Microsoft was the only entity coming to the party, that strategy might work for them now too. But they're not. They're competing in an established market, where the market leader nets the vast majority of sales, and where the market leader has an established/loyal following.
I guarantee you if Sony and Universal music were not available in the Zune store, you'd be sitting here laughing at Microsoft because their music selection was non-existant. And you wouldn't buy one. And neither would anyone else.
So, they made a choice that sucks, but still puts them (worst case) at feature parity with the market leader. Scenario 1 is still FAR better than scenarios 2 and 3. In fact, you could even argue that the companies preventing their music from being shared will sell fewer songs than the companies that do, meaning that eventually they'll see all the money they're losing and ask to turn it on.
I'm not arguing that DRM doesn't stink, and they got a crapton of things wrong with the Zune. But regarding the DRM crap, everyone is throwing the wrong party under the bus. I guarantee you they didn't WANT to waste time, money, and effort putting this crap into a device.
Spend 5 minutes running through the various options in your head; consider the market environment, consider what (normal) people want, consider the demands of the music companies, consider what the law allows, and consider what kind of negotiating leverage you have available.
Your suggestions so far demonstrate a lack of understanding of the market environment and the kind of leverage Microsoft has available.
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Re:How do you want to be abused today? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why on earth should Microsoft even negotiate terms? It's not like all those 80-gig iPods out there are filled with songs purchased through iTMS; most of what they're playing are mp3s, not AACs.
If Microsoft wants to sell a *music player*, they don't need to negotiate terms at all. They don't even need to fucking *talk* to the likes of Sony. This is *Microsoft*. If they want to capture a significant percentage of the music player market, and maybe even take some of that market away from Apple, then they shouldn't negotiate terms. They should worry about making a music player that people are going to *want to buy*. Like, maybe something that plays every damned format of audio you can stick on it, including Vorbis. Maybe something that features improvements over the iPod interface (and there are quite a few interface improvements that should be readily apparent to anyone who has used one).
You know, give the customer something he's willing to buy, at a price he's willing to pay for it. Why should MS talk to Sony and BMG and Universal? Shouldn't they be talking to their target customers, instead?
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Re:How do you want to be abused today? (Score:5, Interesting)
I think they were aware of its limitations when they added the feature. In my opinion, it was never intended to be an actual useful feature. They just wanted WiFi as a bullet point on their features list, to differentiate their product from Apple's. Whether the feature actually did anything useful was an afterthought. That's why the WiFi was crippled from the start.
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Re:How do you want to be abused today? (Score:5, Interesting)
At the very least they could label songs that are restricted. At the very least. The fact that they don't label them as such, and now people can't share the songs as advertised is pretty bad. Of course, the record companies are just plain brain-dead to think they should restrict free advertisements of their music. From what I understand, the whole sharing process is designed to encourage users to buy the songs they borrow, once their limited-use period runs out.
Morons. All of them.
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Re:How do you want to be abused today? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Surprised? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, I'm reasonably sure this move is going to end up costing Sony and Universal money, so there's that to be happy about.
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What next? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What next? (Score:5, Interesting)
Earphones that measure your skin conductance while listening to songs, and then auto-rate the song based on your pleasure response. On the back end an E-bid style site allows music producers to buy the marketing data.
Microsoft: What do you want to think today?
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Re:What next? (Score:5, Funny)
No, you pay up front for the enjoyment rating of the song. If your enjoyment goes beyond what you have paid for they bill you again.
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Heh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Sony: O Rly? Squirt this bizitches.
Ahhh, the mysterious world of corporate interaction.
Re:Heh. (Score:5, Insightful)
It's really much worse than that. For all the complaints, and the long-term rivalry between Sony and Microsoft, they are STILL selling computers only with Windows, and making software for their equipment Windows-only, going out of their way to shut-out Mac and Unix systems.
And with their huge product line-up, and money to invest, they could single-handedly do more harm to Microsoft (by switching to something like Linux on their machines, and making Linux-compatible software for their devices) than the more-often touted small-game players like Dell. Plus, it would probably pay off for them, as they'd have a far better chance of capturing the pro market with Unix workstations and notebooks, preloaded with digital multimedia software, than with the clumsy joke that is Windows' multimedia capabilities.
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Like this matters (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Like this matters (Score:5, Funny)
I heard somewhere that George Michael was recently spotted squirting his songs to various passersby at a rest stop in New Jersey.
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Re:Like this matters (Score:4, Funny)
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I can think of worse things (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I can think of worse things (Score:5, Insightful)
Basically Universal stole your money pulled down your pants and tripped you on the Zune. Regardless of them being top 40 hits or not, Universal really fucked over their customers.
Not to just pick on them though, supposedly its every label that has a bunch of songs you cant transfer.
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Not really a problem (Score:5, Funny)
Given the near astronomical odds of actually finding another Zune owner within a 20-mile radius that you'd want to share your music with, I think this problem is pretty much moot.
Apple bends the RIAA over, the RIAA bends MS over (Score:5, Insightful)
Now Microsoft was fairly nice to the RIAA and even paid them a royalty per MP3 player and now the Zune's most vaunted feature, their crippled wireless, can't even be utilized correctly. If the Zune had any steam amoung any geek circles (not that I think it did), this will surely kill it because it had few other advantages. It seems the RIAA and its member companies have royally screwed Microsoft.
I guess this shows how business truly gets conducted and how the RIAA should be dealt with when it is whining.
A present to Microsoft:
http://allaboutfrogs.org/stories/scorpion.html [allaboutfrogs.org]
Re:Apple bends the RIAA over, the RIAA bends MS ov (Score:4, Informative)
An out of left field idea that has been voiced before, but is now actually closer to reality. Apple has settled their dispute with Apple Records. A recent Slashdot story mentions a British band that made the Top-40 with an online-only release of their single.
How many artists would jump at the chance to directly release their music on iTunes?
There's plenty of money to be made in the music business without excessively bleeding the artists or the consumers. A direct to iTunes model could be a catalyst to ultimately changing the way artists reach their listeners. It's also Steve Jobs' tactical nuclear weapon in his dealings with the record labels.
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Oh Noes!!! (Score:5, Funny)
Duh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well of course there is no warning that a song might be unsharable! If they warned you, you might not buy it.
And Universal gets paid for each Zune sold, why? (Score:4, Interesting)
http://billboard.com/bbcom/news/article_display.j
"Yesterday, Microsoft agreed to share revenue from Zune sales with record labels and artists. Forcing the issue was Universal Music Group, which at deadline is the only label named in the program. UMG refused to license its music to the Zune unless it could receive a percentage of each device sold, in addition to standard music licensing fees for downloads and subscriptions.
"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says. "So it's time to get paid for it."
When I saw the headlines on Engadget I thought for sure Universal wouldnt be one of the labels, after all Microsoft chose to pay them off causing good ol' Doug to say he's entitled to a chunk of iPod sales as well. This begs the question: what was the point of the payoff? What did it get them?
Re:And Universal gets paid for each Zune sold, why (Score:5, Interesting)
You answered your own question! Precedent for forcing the same kind of "deal" on Apple is the payoff. Microsoft doesn't give a shit about the Zune; that's why it isn't a "PlaysForSure" device (and probably why it looks like a piece of shit too). It's greatest value to Microsoft is as a sabot -- a shoe to throw into Apple's works.
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This time for sure, Charlie (Score:5, Funny)
The funniest part (Score:5, Interesting)
Just how unpopular is it?!?
Sigh, mind-bogglingly stupid... but irrelevant... (Score:5, Interesting)
Anyway, as I said the Zune pass is the main reason to have one, it lets you download whatever you want from the marketplace.
Now, odds are if you have a zune, you have the pass. Maybe not, but likely so.
So. If you meet another zune owner (and I'll admit this has never happened to me, and I live in one of the ten largest metro areas in the US), and you both have zune pass --- meaning whatever the song is, you could go home and download it and keep it on there for as long as you were a member (forget the 3 days 3 plays) --- you still can't zip it over there. Ridiculous. I guess you might as well just tell them the name of the song or artist.
The wifi feature of the device is pretty much a non-feature. The zune pass is really the only feature at this time. Something apple could easily implement, and hey, I hope they do at some point. But they'd probably have to pay through the nose after microsoft's deal for that. but that's neither here nor there.
Given the pass, the player is still worth it for me. They may update its firmware someday and add other stuff, but as I said, I mainly have this for the pass.
I actually keep the wifi turned on (sacrificing some battery) because on the zune boards I frequent (Zunerama [zunerama.com]) they kind of encourage everyone to do that in hopes paths might cross (on the boards this has resulted in exactly one reported encounter of people that didn't buy them together)...
Someone even went and made a way to chat with Zunes over wifi. How? Well, it lets you share photos. So he created a set of pictures with every letter of the alphabet, plus common phrases and emoticons. So you share photos in a certain order and your recipient can view the pictures to put together the message. A staggering amount of effort...
Anyway. Given that its Sony, and Sony and Microsoft are currently enemies on the gaming front, dunno if its somehow related. Sony doesn't allow sharing of music on PSPs, does it? I have a sony ericsson walkman phone which doesn't seem to have much in the way of DRM enforcement on it. It is supposed to have some kind of associated store from Cingular, but never got around to using it.
Re:One more reason to use AllofMP3.com (Score:5, Informative)
You look like the perfect person to answer my question.
Why pay for music from allofmp3? It's (sort of) legal, but the artists still don't receive anything. Which means it's like buying from the RIAA, only cheaper. Which means it's like p2p, only more expensive.
Downloading from allofmp3 is about as "moral" as just straight downloading. What's the point in paying for it?
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Re:One more reason to use AllofMP3.com (Score:5, Insightful)
I haven't bought anything from allofmp3, but have read answers to questions such as yours the million or so times they've been posted to slashdot.
Basically, people buy from allofmp3 for three reasons.
1) Convenience. Easy to find songs.
2) Consistent tags (no foo fighter songs with "Christian Rap" as their genre [or spelt as foo fighters, Foo Fighters, Fo Fighters, Foo Fighter])
3) Reliable song download times. All http, songs will take the same amount of time to download instead of ranging from minutes (for very popular songs) to weeks (for obscure, only shared by one guy in peru on dial-up songs).
Many people don't care about moral issues, but find the above factors worth paying a few cents per song.
Frankly, all of the above should be exceedingly obvious to anyone who's ever downloaded music from p2p.
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Re:One more reason to use AllofDownloading MP3.com (Score:4, Insightful)
You know, the stuff that the "legit" music distributors are supposed to provide.
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Re:One more reason to use AllofMP3.com (Score:5, Insightful)
AoMP3 PAYS about 20% of song's price to artist. That's MORE than artists get from ITMS.
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Re:Not exactly. (Score:4, Informative)
The levy collected on blank CD-R, memory cards, etc in Canada was not distributed to the artists, and only a portion of it went to the record labels as such. The rest of it? Disappeared in the accounting nightmare that is the recording industry; and do you have any idea what the Record labels did with the share they were given directly? Yep, swallowed it up in the accounting nightmare.
The artists get squat, even when everything is done on the up-and-up. So forget the issue of AoMP3 screwing the artists. They aren't. No more than anyone else is.
And they legally cannot pay the artists directly anyway, they have the pay the record labels.
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