I really don’t understand this. Microsoft are saying that Zune will not be compatible with Plays for Sure encoded content bought through the MSN music store. The story’s been floating around for a week but I assumed that once MS realised how bad it made them look they’d claim it was all just a silly misunderstanding and fix it.

It’s hard to tell from the BBC story which media might work with which player or what the possible reason for the incompatibility might be. Not that the specifics really matter; the real problem is that proprietary DRM means you don’t really have a clue what you’re buying and how its capabilities might change after you’ve bought it. DRM turns devices that are technically capable of playing just about any digital audio content into little walled gardens of artificial rules and constraints - and those walls can be moved with every software update.

The rational alternative is to download the music illegally, send a few quid directly to the artist and ask them to distribute as much of that back to their record company as they see fit. No DRM, more money for the artist and record companies getting paid what they’re worth rather than what they can extort. Unfortunately that’s illegal - so I can’t possibly recommend it.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 6th, 2006 at 3:47 pm and is filed under Microsoft, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.