Warning: CrunchGear is not responsible for musical tastes.
There’s a bit of excitement over at Zunerama as one reader has discovered that Zune Marketplace songs are now working on a Creative Zen, which means Zune DRM isn’t so special after all.
Apparently someone’s 13-year-old daughter started dragging Zune Pass songs from her Zune to her Zen. The Zen sucked up the music without complaint but the forum is convinced that her joy will be short-lived once Zune’s DRM servers figure out what’s up. I, for one, seriously doubt anything will happen as long as she keeps paying her bill. It’s not in Microsoft’s best interest to officially allow Zune/PlaysForSure compatibility, but if this is an error or purposeful “bug” then I suspect it won’t change any time soon. The Zune is hurting and any boost in goodwill they can get is a positive thing.
Zune Pass songs can be loaded onto other players - e.g. Creative Zen [Zunerama]
This is not news. This as been known for a long time.
Check this interview from Cliczune with David Caulton, a Zune team member. He said:
“Zune content can get out via Windows Media Player into playsforsure devices, but this scenario isn’t officially supported and may not be reliable.”
http://www.cliczune.com/2006/11/exclusive_no_ne.html
The interview was done in November 2006!
Easy now ClicZune - we saw your interview as well with David, and appreciate that. It is news to many, though, to see how this is playing out for our members in the real world.
I don’t think this compatibility is widely known - thanks for getting the story out, CrunchGear.
Hi all!
I reckon that the reason that a PlaysForSure device would be able to handle Zune Marketplace content is because MS might have built the Zune Marketplace DRM as a superset of the Windows Media DRM codebase.
With regards,
Simon Mackay