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DRM-less music in Zune's future

4 April 2007 17:53 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 4 comments

After Apple CEO Steve Jobs published an open letter on why the music industry should completely drop digital rights management (DRM) protection schemes from music downloads, Microsoft said it would be irresponsible to drop those restrictions completely. The company pointed out how DRM would be vital in services such as subscription services and newer business models.

However, the company does plan to start selling DRM-less music from EMI and other companies through the Zune marketplace. "We've been saying for a while that we are aware that consumers want to have unprotected content," said Zune marketing director Jason Reindorp. He did not give any time frame to expect DRM-less music to be available.

EMI is selling DRM-less tracks at a premium through Apple's iTunes music store. Removing the DRM opens the music to many more portable players and the more tracks that are unprotected, the more level the playing field may get for all online music download stores. "This does open things up a little bit," Reindorp said. "It potentially makes the competition more on a device-to-device or service-to-service basis. It will force the various services to really innovate."

Source:
News.com

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Discuss this article!
limelight (Member) 4 April 2007 18:52
Time Frame? Its somewhere around "never". [ + quote] This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 4 April 2007 18:52
cousinkix (Newbie) 4 April 2007 22:32
The EMI DRMless music excludes the BEATLES. You might wait for HELL to freeze over B4 it happens. Still maybe never... [ + quote]
georgeluv (Member) 5 April 2007 7:58
the zune is a joke, it takes forever to wirelessly transmit a song. i can get a knock off nano for 20 beans on ebay and my cell phone works just as good as an ipod video, show me a better deal. [ + quote]
elfman12 (Newbie) 7 April 2007 0:17
Originally posted by georgeluv: the zune is a joke, it takes forever to wirelessly transmit a song. No it doesn't. I have transfered a normal 4min song in less than 10sec. That's not slow... to me, at least. Why hate on the main feature that the Zune has over other players?... oh, wait, maybe that's the point. hehe. [ + quote]