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February 24, 2007 12:03 AM
Broken: Zune song transfer error
From Michael Meiser's Flickr photostream:
"Welcome to the anti-social." :)
>"Oops, we couldn't cripple it
>enough to suit us. We'll just
>let you send the songs that
>suck so badly even the RIAA
>doesn't give a **** about
>them."
It certainly sucks, but it's a bat farfetched to claim that Microsoft's doing this because they want to. Direct you're ire to the correct targets: Sony & Universal, who turned around and refused to let Zune owners share their music after previously saying they would.
Yeah, I can see how making the sharing of music one of the main selling points of the Zune is broken. DRM designed to allow file sharing is broken from the start, as it totally defeats its own purpose.
Still, they must put some sort of restrictions on the files (otherwise, no one would ever buy music again). But saying "hey, look, our files have no restrictions!" and then later saying "I wasn't talking about ALL of our files..." is broken.
One of the reasons why I still prefer the Ipod to the Zune. Seven CDs, five computers, and unlimited Ipods should be enough rights for everbody, even if you don't get a direct player-to-player transfer feature.
This is sort of like my bf's (Sony) MiniDisc player. He has tons of MDs full of music, most of which are local dj mixes (i.e., no copyright infringement), that he'd like to put onto his MP3 player. But can he? No. The MD software won't allow you to transfer music off the player unless it's to the device from which you originally obtained it (which he no longer has)! Talk about frustrating...
We can break this down in to two parts:
First is the fact that some songs can't be transfered. This is a legal issue.
Second is how MS dealt with the fact that some songs can't be transfered. This is a design issue. The problem a lot of people have is that the songs are never identified as non-transferrable until you try to transfer them. This means you don't know the rules when you buy a song, and it means that you'll waste the time of another zune owner to find out.
It's this second issue that is clearly broken. The items should be marked with an icon -- before and after purchase -- that indicates their share-ability.
The estimate is that 40% of the songs are not sharable. I'm guessing the zune has been designed to hide that fact. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zune
_@_v - a clunky unattractive caseform, lousy user interface, features that don't really work right and suck battery life, bloated difficult to work with software...
_@_v - did anyone expect anything LESS from micro and soft?
This sort of BS angers me beyond words. There is no technological reason why the device cannot transfer the song files. The restriction is artificial and imposed by a manufacturer in cahoots with the content recycling industry. The only way I will ever buy a Zune is if/when a hack is made available so it can work properly.
So Sony and Universal weren't satisfied with the Zune's ability to automatically delete shared DRM'd songs after 3 plays or 3 days? They still felt threatened? Sheesh, are they insane? Don't they realize most people don't buy music they haven't already heard?
People tend to know their friends’ musical tastes. Zuners introduce new music to their fellow Zuners, who may like the music enough to buy it after it expires. "Hey, Sam! Check out this new tune. Its awesome!"
I would have thought Sony and Universal would embrace this new opportunity to reach more customers and sell more music (securely).
god. freaking people in the music industry never let us have any fun. well, this isn't really a problem with the Zune (besides the fact that it doesn't tell you that you can't share them), its really the record companies wanting every single penny they can get! This is why I never buy music online! They always protect stuff so you can't share them. Its not like people can't find ways around the protection. There are many ways, trust me. But this isn't really a problem with the Zune. Some songs in the iTunes store are also copy protected but at least they warn you.
Comments on this entry are closed
Previous: (Just for Fun) Kline Realty advertisement | Main | Next: Parking sign in front of police station
Wasn't this supposed to be one of the big selling points for the Zune?
"HA-ha you can transfer crippled play-five-times-then-die songs to friends' Zunes! We're better than iPod! Booyah!"
"Oops, we couldn't cripple it enough to suit us. We'll just let you send the songs that suck so badly even the RIAA doesn't give a **** about them."
Grr... for this level of frustration they could have saved some money by letting zunes share by direct cable connection to each other instead of blowing money and battery life on wireless that isn't really usable.
Posted by: lm at February 24, 2007 01:30 AM