Proc.new

Microsoft has been on the offensive when it comes to piracy lately, but perhaps their most interesting move lately comes with the Zune. The Zune has been receiving a lot of press lately, most of it deservedly bad. There is just one little area I’d like to focus in on though, and that’s the agreement Microsoft has made with the Music companies. As reported here:

The Final Reason I Won’t Buy a Zune

and here:

Avoid the loony Zune

Microsoft has made an agreement with at least Universal Music, and potentially others to pay them compensation for stolen music on the Zune. This means that every Zune sale results in a royalty type payment to Universal and whoever else has made the agreement with Microsoft. Having set a price on each Zune unit, Universal has done a couple of things.

1) They have capped their damages on a single unit. The music companies have been leveling extortive fees of many thousands of dollars at people caught with pirated music. Now that they have agreed to a specific monetary amount for each Zune, they will be hard pressed to ask for more money from any defendant since they have specifically set an amount that “pirated” music on a single device is worth.

2) You pay the fee on the Zune no matter what, therfore by purchasing a Zune you have already paid the above mentioned damages, which should effectively authorize you to download as much illegal music as you can fit on the Zune.

As I said above, I am not a lawyer, but if anyone reading this is a lawyer with experience in this area, I’d be interested in hearing what you have to say. If you are from the music companies, move along please, nothing to see here.

Microsoft may have gotten the Zune so wrong that they unintentionally got something right.  It seems as if their war against piracy will have the opposite of the intended effect.  Rather than sinfully admitting that people are going to use the Zune to pirate music, it seems like this deal paves the way for the legal piracy of music.