Blaming the market leader


The press goes after Apple's "closed" iPod while ignoring the Zune and record company shenanigans

Apple takes heat because their iTunes and iPod platform isn't open. There are reasons for this, and most of it has to do with the major record labels demanding some protection for their music. Micro$oft does the same thing, but Apple takes the flack.

In fact, part of the price of a Zune goes to the record labels as a royalty check.

Not satisfied with that, at least two companies restrict the Zune further.

There is a lot of testing going on at Zunerama and ZuneThoughts about songs that can or cannot be shared when purchased or acquired through the ZunePass. Both sites are coming with numbers of around 40% of songs that “can’t” be shared from Zune to Zune. This is an important number considering that on of the key highlight of the Zune marketing is based on sharing and Wifi. Indeed, the Wireless device inside the Zune can only be used for sharing.

We wanted to know from what record label those artists are associated with. We were surprised to find that Universal, who signed an aggressive deal with Microsoft by grabbing a royalty for each Zune sold, does have a lot of artists cut in the “Zune sharing prohibited” list. Sony Music is also limiting the Zune sharing for a few of their artists.

Remember, "Zune sharing" can only be played three times by the receiver, and vanishes after three days even if it isn't played.

Apple compromised between the consumer demands and the record labels. Remember too that before Apple's iPod and the iTunes Store, there wasn't a working model that paid the labels anything for the songs. Apple gave better quality in exchange for some copy restrictions. There are ways around it that will let people copy their protected AAC files from the ITMS to unprotected MP3 format at a lower quality, Apple just doesn't talk about it much.

The point is that Apple's model looks positively libertarian when compared to what Micro$oft and the record labels want to force on people, but that isn't getting the headlines.

Hat tip Endgadget.

— NeoWayland

Posted: Sun - January 21, 2007 at 02:40 PM  Tag


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