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Zune's Wireless Almost Totally Worthless
Posted by
Zonk
on Tue Oct 03, 2006 07:53 AM
from the missing-the-point dept.
from the missing-the-point dept.
mikesd81 writes to mention an article at Engadget exploring what the Zune's wireless is good for. It turns out that, at least for now, that's not much. From the article: "You can search for and find other Zunes nearby. You can send songs / albums for the 3 x 3 trial. Songs past the three days / listens are deleted at next sync, but catalogued on your PC for record-keeping should you want to purchase them later. No word on whether Microsoft is going to keep track of which files are traded. You can send and receive image files for 'unlimited viewing.' (Oh, so copyrighted images aren't worth DRMing?) You can't: Connect to the internet, Download songs directly from the Zune store via WiFi, Sync to your computer via WiFi."
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[+]
Your Rights Online: Zune's Viral DRM Will Violate Creative Commons 266 comments
lopy writes "Medialoper has noted that Zune's highly touted wireless file sharing will infect otherwise unprotected audio files with proprietary DRM. In cases where users are sharing songs covered by any of the Creative Commons licenses, this would be a clear violation of those license. From the CC FAQ: 'If a person uses DRM tools to restrict any of the rights granted in the license, that person violates the license.' It'll be interesting to see how and if the CC community responds." An anonymous reader wrote in mentioning a post to the Crave blog, relatedly exploring how the Zune stacks up to the iPod.
[+]
Your Rights Online: Zune Won't Play Old DRM Infected Files 463 comments
Spritzer writes "According to the EFF, the new Zune portable media player from Microsoft won't play files infected with the old Microsoft DRM. It seems that all of the 'PlaysforSure' media that has been sold and is currently being sold will not play on the Zune. In addition, Microsoft has now advocated violating the DMCA in order to transfer files to the player. Microsoft Zune architect J Allard was quoted as saying there's 'Lots of DVD ripping software out there that encodes to those formats, so the most popular formats out there, whether it's MPEG-4 or H.264, we'll support those.'" ZDNet offers up additional commentary on this revelation.
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Makes me wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Makes me wonder (Score:4, Funny)
Coincidentally, that's going to be the Zune 2. Or at least, the Zune 2 is going to approach it. The Zune 5 might have something similar to it, and they'll claim to have invented it too.
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Re:Makes me wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
It's telling that our culture seems to put emphasis on how shortlived it really is, instead of thinking of the future and how we can best preserve our legacy for those that will come after us.
I'd hate to be in the shoes of a 23rd century researcher trying to play back a 2005 issue SONY drm'd compact disc or the last copy of a tune surviving on some ancient file server in encrypted apple iTunes format.
At least make it mandatory that media have to be deposited in DRM free format with some agency to make sure that the future will have access to todays cashcows (cash mice ? Mickey comes to mind), just in case congress at some remote point in the future decides that Walts estate has earned enough dough.
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
In the case of Britney and Paris, I might actually think this is a good thing. I don't want them to be a legacy.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
We'll really never know.
Believe it or not, there are some real admirers of Paris and that is a disgusting indicator of our society.
I happen to be in a position where I am privy to teenage essays and you'd be disgusted at the percentage of teenage girls that idolize her.
Re:Makes me wonder (Score:4, Interesting)
It's telling that our culture seems to put emphasis on how shortlived it really is, instead of thinking of the future and how we can best preserve our legacy for those that will come after us.
There are people who are trying to preserve things for the future. I heard a story on NPR perhaps a couple of years ago about a group of people who were creating brand new 78 rpm records of current music. The reason was for preservaton because a 78 RPM records is apparently extrememly easy to play even without much technology. Personally, I fail to see how the music of eminem is going to help future generations living after the collapse of technology (perhaps as a warning of what to avoid?)
Our society may ultimately be remembered only for the work of those individuals.
Who is to say that our view of past societies isn't mostly based on things that those societies chose to preserve for the long term. They may very well have had other artworks that were shorter lasting that we won't know about.
I was reading about the history of photography. One thing I learned was that there were photographic techniques created in the 1700s that could take a photograph, but they had not yet developed technology to "fix" the photograph permanently. So, those images only lasted minutes in most cases.
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Re:Makes me wonder (Score:4, Funny)
I'm picturing the end of A.I., when the future robots find Haley Joel Osment at the bottom of the frozen sea, and when they also find the 2005 Sony CD, one sticks the CD in its chest and is instantly rooted, clutching its head moaning "Damn XP legacy code!!"
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Re:23rd Century (Score:4, Insightful)
There is a fair amount of material that is not DRM'd.
If you look at the past of human history, you see societies that we know lots about, and societies we know little about.
The societies we know lots about wrote material down in not particularly difficult to translate media.
The societies we know little about wrote down little, and what they did write was indicperiable. They remain a mystery.
Phish, for example, will last for a long time, regardless of whether or not people like it. It's DRM free for copying, so it can remain alive forever.
Metallica, on the other hand, will vanish in the sands of history, because no one will bother with a player that can run the discs, and after the last encryption code vanishes, no one will bother to decrypt it, except as a potential academic product in the annals of some obscure journal.
We won't see the whole 20th century go into the darkness. We will see GPL code that lives in the future as library/museum type stuff, while Windows will only live on in pictures/videos.
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Re:Makes me wonder (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm working on a daz.com [daz.com] site that will hopefully solve that problem once and for all.
It is my nsho that record companies are dinosaurs that just don't quite realize they're already extinct and it will be my great pleasure to help nail shut the coffins.
Check out Janis Ian vs the RIAA to see how bad it really is.
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Re: (Score:3)
You don't know shit, TROLL (Score:4, Informative)
If I plug my iPod into someone elses PC and try to access the library, I will get a friendly iTunes prompt asking if I want to attach my iPod to that PC
iTunes will ask you if you want to use iTunes to automatically sync the strange iPod you connected. You decline and now you are free to move any and all songs from the PC (including Apple DRM'ed ones) on the iPod.
Thanks for playing!
Parent
Let me tell you what kind of world would it be (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks to RIAA, MPAA, and other similar shit, we arent living in such a world.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
They get the same shitty pay-cheque from the record company as always. The record company executives, on the other hand, are starving in the gutters.
Hey, a man can dream...
Re:Makes me wonder (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice try AC, but they get paid for this content because with the increased sharing, people are exposed to much more new music than they normally would (think P2P effect on speed), and therefore find more bands they like and want to support. Thus, they end up going to see more live shows, and purchasing more merchandise.
For the bands that are smart enough to go with a label that supports sharing, or are Indie, they will thrive because thats where the majority of their income came from in the past and this would amplify that. Remember, traditionally bands really make their money touring, not from music sales which the labels gouge them on.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I ask because I see this argument all the time, but I have never once seen data to back it up. The status quo assumption should obviously be that, if people can download something for free, they will not buy it. A serious ske
Re:Makes me wonder (Score:4, Insightful)
"The study of economics proposes that people respond to incentives"
---
"According to the econodwarf's vision, each human being is an individual possessing "incentives," which can be retrospectively unearthed by imagining the state of the bank account at various times. So in this instance the econodwarf feels compelled to object that without the rules I am lampooning, there would be no incentive to create the things the rules treat as property: without the ability to exclude others from music there would be no music, because no one could be sure of getting paid for creating it."
"The dwarf's basic problem is that "incentives" is merely a metaphor, and as a metaphor to describe human creative activity it's pretty crummy"
http://emoglen.law.columbia.edu/my_pubs/anarchism
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Re:Makes me wonder (Score:5, Informative)
Also trying to point out that the vast majority of Slashdotters, including the one to whom I replied, produce nothing in the way of copyrightable content, let alone make it their primary occupation, yet want to sit on the sidelines and offer advice as to how the actual producers should conduct themselves in their business.
Hi, I'm a professional content creator. The majority of my income is from creating copyrighted works. Does that somehow make my opinions more logical or factual?
All the while we the producers are happy with the current arrangement, as are most normals.
Are you joking? Most of "we the producers" are not happy or sad or much of anything because we're long since dead. The majority of copyrighted works are not available to the public, at all. They are not for sale. Take a look at motown records, for example. I think something like 5% of their catalogue of copyrighted music is available for sale, and they own the majority of the works in an entire genre of American music. I don't know about you, but I doubt those artists would be too happy about that and those of us that would like to listen to it sure aren't.
As for the previous poster, he's entirely right. Copyright costs most musicians money, rather than makes it for them. In order to reach a mainstream audience they have to go through the RIAA, and for most artists that means they pay money for the privilege of handing over all their copyrights. They make their money with live performances and merchandise. For the average musician, no copyright at all would probably increase their revenue.
The point of all of this is not to say that copyright is not a useful incentive in some cases, it is to make you aware that the current implementation of copyright in conjunction with cartels that have monopolized the distribution channels is broken and needs to be fixed.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We have had artists and musicians for a few thousand years now. They produced some pretty good stuff without worrying about DRM.
"leave the new stuff for artists to make a living."
That statement confuses me. Is there some secret stash of new music that artists go to when they need a song? Or are you saying that only newly written songs should make money? How about old songs with new recordings? Old songs in a new package?
There are some strong
Re:Makes me wonder (Score:4, Funny)
I've got a Modest Proposal to solve that problem, if you want to hear it...
Parent
So? (Score:5, Interesting)
Anything that has DRM and fails is a good thing.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re:So? (Score:5, Informative)
Apple may not have a nice gui for copying songs back off your ipod, but that doesn't matter. They don't *stop* you from doing it, not on a mac, not on windows, that's the point. There are no secret drivers with hidden APIs that override the system ones. They are just in a folder marked "invisible". Nor do they encrypt all songs when you transfer it to your ipod. They just copy them exactly.
--Sadly, text alone cannot convey the depths of my sarcasm.
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So? (Score:4, Informative)
And if you copy those 4343ddacs332.aac back to another copy of iTunes, iTunes will automatically rename the file based on the ID3 tags in it. (Which the iPod does not change in any way.) So it still works fine in any player that accepts that file type and uses ID3 tags instead of file names to organize files.
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Custom Firmware (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Rockbox [rockbox.org] then?
selling music via wireless (Score:3, Insightful)
Good... No great (Score:5, Interesting)
still waiting (Score:4, Interesting)
Almost totally useless _for users_ (Score:3, Insightful)
For the major stakeholders, i.e. IP holders, it's quite useful. It's just useless to _people_.
I, for one, am happy and proud to be part of this next Microsoft step into the 'products that people actively try and avoid' space. Further initiatives are to include a portable game platform that makes the sound of a crying baby, and a new mouse that randomly fires blasts of deadly, mutagenic radiation, all the time, for no reason. Also Vista.
It's all a difference in philosophy. Old Microsoft was about _giving_ people what they wanted, in the hope that they would then _give_ money in return. They would send people out who would discover needs (like the need for a Euro sign character, which the planet's committees and standards groups never grasped the point of) and then fulfil those needs. This kinda sorta worked a bit, but it was a bit pedestrian. Since 2000, New Microsoft has been focusing on actively _taking_ money out of the marketplace and _avoiding_ giving value in return. The Zune is part of this -- see, it has complex and interesting features, but they're there to prevent you from extracting value from it. It's like when they suddenly started charging for the Office /
Basically, what MS understands that nobody else on the planet really grasps is that V + P = K, where:
V = value delivered to the rest of the world
P = profit for MS
K = some constant
See how decreasing V is just like increasing P? It's brilliant once you get it. So this Zune serves to drive V down just a little bit further. Next step? PROFIT!!!
When I say 'profit' I must admit I mean 'ever decreasing relevancy'. But that's because I'm not a technical visionary like Steve Ballmer.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's exactly the same thing great for everyone, and by everyone I mean Microsoft and all the major IP holders.
Not so great (actually pretty shit) for anyone that actually wants to buy and use the product.
Funnily enough this seems to be a pretty common theme for products that revolve around DRM.
Story repeats itself... (Score:5, Interesting)
Story repeats itself...
Unrealistic? (Score:5, Insightful)
Trouble with Wifi? (Score:5, Interesting)
I really can't figure this device out. Knowing how the Zune is an MS only device (Linux and Mac users need not apply), its seems likely to me the reason for zune is an "get locked into MS Windows/ Windows Media Player".
MS is not making a profit on the device, and content sale revenues are tiny.
Trouble with idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Given all the things you mention are obvious to anyone technical, it doesn't seem like a great idea at all - does it? Why on earth did the designers include it when you know it also made the case that much larger?
I really can't figure this device out. Knowing how the Zune is an MS only device (Linux and Mac users need not apply), its seems likely to me the reas
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
They won't make much (any) profit on sales of the Zune itself at first, but that's mostly because they don't anticipate selling many and so won't have many economies of scale. As with the Xbox, they expect that to change. An
Re:Trouble with Wifi? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not about immediate profit, it's about control. Someone is making money in a computer-related market, and Microsoft doesn't control it. They have no piece of the iTunes/iPod action, and apparently they don't like that. They'll be willing to lose money on the venture all the way up until they've established control, and then they'll rake users over the coals once users have been locked into the Microsoft platform.
That's what Microsoft is after these days-- an all inclusive end-to-end dominance on anything resembling a computer. Handhelds, MP3 players, servers, desktops, refrigerators, web browsers, e-mail, game consoles, etc. The result will be that, any emerging computer market, no matter what the market is, will need to go through Microsoft, and Microsoft will dominate it.
Microsoft is not in the business of providing consumer products or OEM software-- they're in the business of dominating markets and eliminating competition.
Parent
Microsoft's penchant for tying up Windows... (Score:5, Interesting)
As it stands today, Zune (even with its crippled WiFi) MAY prove a formudable competitor to iPod, if the screen resolution and usage factor is good and NO bloatware.
The KISS attitude is a far cry for Microsoft. Their products tend to be bloatware almost always:
Expect the following "feature" from Zune when its released:
1. WiFi connection to internet (thus opening up way for new Worms and viruses).
2. Ability to add an SD Card.
3. Runs Pocket PC OS version 9.9 !
4. Comes with 30 GB hard-disk out of which 25GB is available to you! Rest 5GB is for the OS.
5. Comes with 128MB internal RAM !!! To run Zune Pocket PC OS.
6. Comes with a voice-activated interface that's enabled by default thus allowing your train pal to just say Maroon to make it switch playlists and start searching for Maroon 5 songs.
7. Comes with mouse-pointers.
8. Comes with virtual keyboard.
9. Plays AVI, WMV files inside Media Player inside Zune. Microsoft forgets Zune itself plays WMV natively.
For Microsoft multi-platform means Windows Mobile, Windows CE, Windows 98 SE, Windows NT, Windows XP, Windows MCE, Windows Vista. All OS have to co-exist with one another and use same API. So Zune OS would be a version of Pocket PC Version 9.9
If Microsoft could pull its head out of the sand and Windows A*s am sure they would build a great new OS for Zune alone. Of course, it would never be compatible with Windows (as OS), but then who cares. Apple didn't exactly open up iPod API to developers.
No, Seriously, iam saying this is a good start, but am sure Microsoft will screw it up.
That Makes my Cellphone a Better MP3 Player (Score:3, Informative)
Sure my phone cost a couple hundred bucks more than the Zune (So did my iPod when I bought it) but I can also use it as a phone, browse the Internet through T-Mobile's data service or wifi if there's a node in range and use it to connect my laptop to the Internet. And use it as a camera or a video camera. And get a GPS fix from any nearby bluetooth GPS...
We're going to be seeing more and more of these smart phones in the USA within the next couple of years and they will make everything the Zune promised to do possible without the odious DRM restrictions from Microsoft. Those will be the devices Apple really needs to worry about.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Ironically, I have a cellphone running a Microsoft OS and I can do the same. It can also do it over Wifi using samba, FTP or HTTP. If it had an HD it would be better and smaller than the zune, but with SD cards at approx 20UKP / 2 gig it's not a big deal.
With 12-month contract mine actually cost a lot less, approx $50 USD.
How about illegal pictures? (Score:5, Insightful)
What if someone uses a poisoned mp3-file (initially sounds like a very low volume, current pop hit, then abruptly cuts to full volume static or sheetmetal noise)? In most other P2P communities there is either a central oversight (torrents) or a user community rating system (like in eMule) to avoid such malicious behaviour - will Microsoft take responsibility?
Oh, and another thing: Can you imitate a zune using a WLAN access point and send out files this way? Certainly there is right now no software available to do that, but think of the opportunities in the future: stores sending targeted high-tech-ad-jingles or catalog pages to all zune owners in range; anarchists distributing (audio) versions of the anarchists cookbook or recipes for drugs or explosives; political offices sending the (audio) equivalent of leaflets to everyone passing by...
Sounds like a really great idea, if there's anything people want then that's more spam!
The hacker potential... (Score:5, Informative)
Wireless car adapters... (Score:4, Interesting)
Where this is going is to an "it just works" system where you can just bring your Zune into your car, the stereo detects it and you can start playing from it. It's basically undercutting the iPod/car adapters model since you don't have to go through the hassle of adapters and wires, etc. If they can do that and steal the iPod's battlecry (effective simplicity), they could steal a large chunk of the market quicker than the
This is news? (Score:3, Insightful)
What new tidbit of information was revealed here, exactly?
Wireless Speed (Score:3, Insightful)
If it works well for pictures it's great already (Score:3, Insightful)
Sounds good (and diabolically clever) to me (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot depends on just how that three-day limit works. If you give a song to a friend and it expires, can you give it to him/her again?
I think quite a lot of music might get sold on the basis of short-term trials when the music was, in fact, recommended by a friend.
I can also see a lot of social gratification in being the first kid on the block to have paid for and bought a hot new tune, and therefore being the one who's in the position of being able to give trial versions to everyone else. (If Microsoft is smart, you will be able to give fresh trials over and over. Then the kids who haven't bought the music need to repeatedly go to the kid who has, in order to get their new time-limited free copies.) All of this in turn provides powerful reinforcement for wanting to buy the tune and be the go-to kid.
Actually, you want to do it in a hurry. If kid A gives you a free trial version, and you can afford to buy it, you'd want to buy it quickly, so there are still kids whom A hasn't given it to yet—kids for whom you can be the wealthy song-dispensing patron.
Furthermore, if there are a fair number of Zunes in play in a social group, then the kids with iPods are excluded... they see the kids with Zunes trading tunes and they're out of it, even if the kids with Zunes are their personal friends.
And I don't think these kids are going to spend much time stripping DRM from their music or exploiting the analog hole or anything like that.
The big "if" is whether the Zune garners enough critical mass for any of this to happen. If only two kids in school have Zunes and neither of them is interested in being a social patron of the other, it isn't going to work.
Mind you, this isn't what I want from a "wireless" mp3 player. But that doesn't mean it won't be effective.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Why the hell would I want a WIFI enable device if I can't even connect it to an AP or AD-HOC it to my notebook, it makes it really useless.
My Phone has bluetooth on it, and I sync it with my notebook wirlessly to change my playlists or archive my messages, its fantastic and its really got me to use the MP3 player in it. I don't think ill need to by the
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:It won't take long... (Score:4, Informative)
Not true; Apple didn't do anything at all to prevent this, they just didn't write software to do it. The files are stored on the iPod in their original form, but with a database index as the name. The database isn't at all difficult to read.
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