Zune Sez Buh-Bye!

[Anderton]

On November 15, Zune (2006-2015) will die an uncelebrated death, and the 14 remaining users will no longer be able to stream or download content from Zune. It is survived by Microsoft’s Groove service, to which Zune Music Pass subscribers will be transitioned. Looks like Zune will be another Microsoft "Hey! We have this great idea!!" (pause a few years) "Never mind."

 

But what about content with DRM? If users can’t renew a license, is the content gone? Wouldn’t be the first time copy protection was so “effective” it prevented legitimate owners of software to use what they bought.

 

And whatever happened to Windows Media Audio, anyway? I always liked it better than MP3 or AAC. But I think Windows 10 will escort it out of the building in favor of FLAC.

[Phil O'Keefe]

There's a good article in Wired about it...

 

http://www.wired.com/2015/09/what-to-do-with-your-zune-rip-zune/

 

I do agree that there is a real issue with the rights management whenever a company goes belly up or discontinues a product, and while I wish they'd get that worked out, in some ways, it's not a whole lot different than when the playback media du jour changed - we had to replace all our LPs with cassettes, then CDs, then MP3s... while I don't think it's a intentional conspiracy, I doubt the record companies or Microsoft minds very much if consumers have to pay yet again to (re)gain access to the same music they've paid for previously. It's never seemed to bother them in the past.

 

But from a consumer standpoint, streaming is going to make all of this irrelevant anyway. The person who wrote the article is stuck in the past - it's not about "owning" disks or even files anymore. The people who get rid of their Zunes aren't going to be (or at least shouldn't be) looking for iPods to replace them - that's so 2005.

[Geoff Grace]

Yeah, when my iPod died two or three years ago, I didn't buy another one.

 

Best,

 

Geoff