Coming off a story in which Microsoft was being sued for including an indigenous language as an available option in Windows Vista, you would think it couldn’t get any worse. Well according to Wired there is a major problem when it comes to Microsofts new Zune player and free to share content, Such as works licensed under Creative commons, or Even perish the thought podcasts. Microsoft has built into Zune a three day three play share mechanism. Music labels are fine with this limited shareing, but the problem comes to music which is supposed to be shared. Audio content such as podcasts cannot be bought, are not supported by Zune’s software right out of the box. More on that in a minute. But Specifically creative commons is against restricting the flow of the music, as long as you don’t profit you can share unedited content.
On one hand i honestly feel sorry for Microsoft at every turn no matter what their original intent was they seem to fall. Which begs the question would apple have this problem if they enabled a similar feature on the ipod? I honestly don’t think so.
By the By, I want to go on record again as stating that i think the entire reason Microsft didn’t incorporate podcasting support into the Zune right off the back was that it was afraid of getting sued by Apple. Apple probably already has the documents written just waiting to be stamped and dated for when Microsoft “infringes on their intellectual property” of the iPod brand. Apple has attempted on numerous occasions to bring podcast into the fold of trademarked words. podcasting or Portable on Demand Broadcasting does not need an ipod to function. As soon as Apple looses enough court cases regarding podcasting and thus clarifies the use of the word pod in the corperate world, then look for Microsoft to introduce podcasting. Zen jukeboxes skipped the whole problem by labeling them zencasts. Interesting idea, zune cast? probably won’t fly.