There has been much said bout the Zune music player and the Microsoft DRM Some feel that in order to succeed the Zune player must offer a more open DRM and be less restrictive than the Apple Ipod is with FairPlay. The common logic being that the less restrictive DRM will offer customers more freedoms in their use of purchased content.

Critics feel a more restrictive DRM will stifle the industry and takes away rights from the consumer to manage their content their way. Whatever your thoughts on an open DRM it appears that Microsoft may have their own plans for a new DRM. We have uncovered a PDF document produced by the Microsoft Research team that may explain more on a Microsoft DRM and why the Zune will not be an open architecture. It remains to be seen what DRM the Zune will actually operate under but this document may shed some light on Microsofts plans for a future Zune DRM.

First off please understand we are not scientists and are still working to decipher some aspects of this document. But it appears that Microsoft may have much larger plans for the Zune family of devices than just to play music and videos. We suggest you read the entire report located here and draw your own conclusions.

This excerpt is from the main page for the International Workshop on
Network and Operating Systems Support for Digital Audio and Video . These statements are made by members of the Off-line Economies for Digital Media team Darko Kirovski and Kamal Jain from Microsoft Research.

We propose a novel platform for building off-line markets for digital content. The key objective is to enable an arbitrary user of specific digital content to resell it to other users in an off-line peer-to-peer manner so that part of the proceeds goes to content’s copyright holder. Most importantly, one part of the revenues is retained by the seller as an incentive for participating in the distributed economy. To address this objective, a transaction is finalized and incentives distributed to the seller on-line using a client-server architecture. Technologically, such systems can be readily created, for example, by adding a communication tool such as Bluetooth to a portable media player such as the iPod. In this paper, we present a threat model for this system and devise a novel protocol that relies on traditional public-key cryptography to ensure secure and efficient off-line transactions of arbitrary digital content. As a consequence, in our system copyright holders can control the pricing and recruit a powerful marketing and sales force with marginal investment and via various types of incentives, users are offered the ability to sell or purchase content they like anywhere, anytime, and to/from anyone.

It would seem that this platform would offer users the ability to not only buy and share content but to also facilitate sales of user generated content as well. As we can determine it seems this DRM would not only allow a user to purchase and listen to content via the standard music service but in addition an artist would have the ability to create and sell their own content through the same service in a user to user fashion facilitated by the DRM and accompanying services. It appears this new DRM architecture will allow an artist to charge for and be paid for their own works and Microsoft will of course share in the profits. It seems the much talked about Zune to Zune service is more than discovering new artists and sharing music it’s about selling new music as well.

This would of course explain the numerous media reports on why the Zune will not be PlaysForSure Compliant. Microsoft developed the PlaysForSure certification program in late 2004 as part of a branding campaign designed to promote products and services that were compatible the Microsoft DRM system. It was an attempt to assure consumers that they could buy any compliant player, subscribe to a compliant music service, and have a seamless digital music experience on par with anything produced by Apple.

In order to offer the music sharing features on a Wifi device the Zune will most likely have to use a more restrictive DRM in order to offer security and protection to the content license holders. Microsoft has also been reported to be in talks with recording studios and artists to support their new music player. A DRM that allowed musicians to create, distribute and sell their own music would play right into the hand of artists. Microsoft seems keen on using the artists support to boost popularity of their new portable music device. If Microsoft succeeds in putting more money into the hands of the artisits they have a chance at making the Zune a hit. This new DRM could be a boon for smaller independant recording artists by offering them the ability to create, license and sell their own original copyrighted works direct to consumer.

Could a new more restrictive Microsoft DRM be key to the success of the Zune? Further analysis to follow.

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