Microsoft to offer 14 days of Zune Pass gratis

If anyone's a little hesitant to thrown down the $14.99 a month for a Zune Pass subscription, you count on Microsoft to be doing its best to tempt you to sign up for the all-you-can-eat music service. According to Wal-Mart (not their first bit of Zune-related leakage) Microsoft is set to include a free 14-day Zune Pass trial with each Zune sold, letting you sample the vast Zune Marketplace at your leisure without dropping a cent. Of course, the good times can only last so long, and at the end of your 14 days all the songs you've downloaded will do nothing but take up space until you fork over the cash for the real deal. Wal-Mart also makes mention of Zune.net which, as of yet, is nothin' but a dead end -- although it is, of course, registered to Microsoft.

[Via Zunerama]

[Sean @ Nov 1st 2006 9:34PM]

Tunebite FTW. ;)

[Brendan @ Nov 1st 2006 10:14PM]

yeah, who said those songs have to end after 14 days...

[S.A. @ Nov 1st 2006 10:30PM]

Three words: DRM

[Jeff @ Nov 1st 2006 10:16PM]

Wait..
What happens to the songs you put on your Zune from the 14 day trial once the trial is up? They make it sound like they'll delete or something. It might sound stupid but considering that the file sharing only lasts 3 days or 3 listens I'd believe they could remove the 14 day trial downloads.

[crescentdavid @ Nov 1st 2006 10:26PM]

The file just won't open and you'll get an popup message saying this file need a valid license.

[Turtle @ Nov 1st 2006 10:46PM]

Fourteen days.

I guess you better listen fast, peeps.

Is it possible for Redmond to be a bigger bunch of tokenistic nutsacks?

[Huey2k2 @ Nov 1st 2006 10:54PM]

Just get DRM removal software. Problem solved. I fill my entire library and strip it of DRM's in 14 days no problem.

[Roc @ Nov 1st 2006 11:32PM]

James Kim posted a 2 min vid review of the Zune. It's looking good for the upcoming media systems.

http://news.com.com/1606-2_3-6131761.html?part=rss

[Jeff @ Nov 2nd 2006 1:54AM]

that was a very boring uninformative video.

somehow suitable though.

[z @ Nov 2nd 2006 1:04AM]

Interesting maybe for the consumer, but once again one question remains to be answered: can MS and friends just decide how much the musicians' work is worth? Just like that? 14 days of free music on the back of the ones who already don't make much dough (most of them...) just for MS to hope making loads of... The Mr 'Indie' ZuneInsider might want to express himself here once on that subject, no?

[tekdroid @ Nov 2nd 2006 3:09AM]

we have 2 options now:
1) artists becoming aware of open-source codecs and USING them, royalty-free. Knowing that no royalties will have to be paid to any corporation ever, for their use. No lock-in. No future price rises as royalty terms change. Hardware manufacturers too; knowing that no royalties will have to be paid for each player that uses open source codecs like FLAC and Ogg Vorbis. See mp3licensing.com to see how expensive supporting mp3 really is, for instance. Somebody always pays.

or...

2) artists and Joe User both remaining clueless, ignorant and just letting the industry dictate their royalties and format standards down their throats. Paying huge royalties on formats (that were once cheap at introduction but now lock-in has been turned on) and accepting the crumbs given by their masters.

Average Joe
================
As long as Joe User continues to be blinded by the 'all you can eat' philosophy so easily offered by the bottomless pit of money Microsoft (and others) have in order to control future entertainment formats, the market will get precisely what it deserves:

1) Digital Rights Restrictions
2) lossy audio replacing lossless
3) more bland corporate-approved crap being fed into their ears. Complain all we like, but Joe is feeding the system. The artists that need to be heard will rarely be given a chance by a major label.

Artist-fan relationships can (and will) bring out far more diversity. No middleman. But so few see the big picture, and really don't understand how they are being ripped off blind (no packaging, sub-CD quality, virtually no resale value, DRM). Fresh-faced artists think that a record deal is their ticket. As long as these two myths live, we are in for more sameness.

We are shaping not only the popular hardware/software that will rule in the future, but the art that we see/hear shaping the richness (or not) of our very cultures - and the prices offered on our work.

Every purchase in support of these Digital Rights Restricted music/ video stores (and hardware devices) we are shaping our own audio/video futures. Once it gets popular past a certain point, there will be no going back for many. Microsoft, Apple or Sony are never gonna support an open source codec in their devices. The chances of independents getting anywhere without paying a huge toll to be heard will be virtually nil.

[LittleJoe @ Nov 2nd 2006 2:31AM]

"that was a very boring uninformative video."

That's Cnet for yah.

[Julian Bond @ Nov 2nd 2006 3:03AM]

What *is* the DRM on Zune/Urge tracks? Is it WMA PFS?

[Diego @ Nov 2nd 2006 4:56AM]

Is their DRM still crackable? If so, just download all you can in the 14 days, remove the DRM, and you now have lots of cheap music, to keep forever! :)

[JD @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:21AM]

I suspect that downloaded content (at least content downloaded with time sensitive tag) will be encrypted or otherwise stored in an unaccessable portion of the drive so that users cannot download them to their PCs and tamper with them.

[Alex @ Nov 2nd 2006 9:18AM]

Don't forget this is new DRM, and seeing how much time FairPlay took to be cracked (I'm taking FairPlay as an example because it is essentially the model MSFT are imitating), i wouldn't count on it being cracked very soon.
Oh, and don't tell me about WMA PFS, because that DRM plan is restricted by a low common denominator, unlike ZuneWMA (or whatever they call it) which is designed to work with a relatively powerful platform

[William Spaetzel @ Nov 2nd 2006 12:08PM]

Actually zune.net appears to be up and running. IT is a pretty well done site.

And you can download a free Windows XP theme with Zune colors that actually looks quite good. I'm using it right now.

[Matt @ Nov 2nd 2006 3:17PM]

This still doesn't support PlayForSure, right? So you can't use the cheaper and probably better Yahoo service with it? And the WiFi is still useless?

[jbhitter24 @ Nov 2nd 2006 4:18PM]

so, how long do you think it will take viodentia to crack this? =)

[Borsi @ Nov 2nd 2006 8:33PM]

zune.net is live!