Although my test was limited, I believe buying from the Top 30 songs list mirrors the behaviour of many Zune Marketplace buyers - and as such, if 38% of those songs aren't available for sharing, it makes the already crippled wireless sharing even less useful. Which songs can be shared, and which songs cannot, is a decision made by the music companies providing the music to the Zune Marketplace - so the lessened functionality of the Zune lies with them. What I cannot excuse, however, is the fact that the Zune Marketplace doesn't clearly indicate which songs cannot be shared - it's a "buyer beware" scenario right now, and I believe that only hurts the Zune platform as a whole.
Microsoft needs to clearly indicate which songs can be shared, and which cannot. Anything less simply isn't honest. Interesting, especially considering the observatins come from someone who's a Zune admirer.
Back to Zunerama, the author says using his Zune Pass subscription, he pulled the top 50 songs from Zune Marketplace, created a playlist, "and attempted to wirelessly send the whole playlist to my wife's Zune". On completion, "a message appeared on my player: 'Can't send some songs because of rights restrictions. 29 of 50 songs sent to Carrie's Zune'.
" None of the anove, says Zunerama which, in the last of three thoughts, opines, "Some is better than none. As underwhelming as the 58% is, I need to remind myself..
. that figure is still 58% higher than would have been possible on any of today's iPods. This is a groundbreaking music sharing approach, and it will only get better from here.
"
But rather than improving, could it get worse? With the venal members of the Big 4 Organized Music cartel, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG, in the driving seat, it could. "We wanted to know from what record label those artists are associated with," says , going on, "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.
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