Matt Lee

I'm Matt Lee, one of the folks behind behind Foo Communications, a company/experiment in music and social media, including Libre.fm, a new social media platform that offers musicians exclusive promotion and play in exchange for licensing their music under a free culture license, and GNU social, a federated social networking project.

Microsoft’s Zune Won’t Play Protected (Microsoft) Windows Media

In yesterday's announcement of the new Zune media player and Zune Marketplace, Microsoft (and many press reports) glossed over a remarkable misfeature that should demonstrate once and for all how DRM and the DMCA harm legitimate customers.
Microsoft's Zune will not play protected Windows Media Audio and Video purchased or "rented" from Napster 2.0, Rhapsody, Yahoo! Unlimited, Movielink, Cinemanow, or any other online media service. That's right -- the media that Microsoft promised would Play For Sure doesn't even play on Microsoft's own device. Buried in footnote 4 of its press release, Microsoft clearly states that "Zune software can import audio files in unprotected WMA, MP3, AAC; photos in JPEG; and videos in WMV, MPEG-4, H.264" -- protected WMA and WMV (not to mention iTunes DRMed AAC) are conspicuously absent.
This is a stark example of DRM under the DMCA giving customers a raw deal.
EFF: DeepLinks - Microsoft's Zune Won't Play Protected Windows Media

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