Microsoft rebrands PlaysForSure to Certified For Windows Vista, confuses world
By Thomas Ricker 
posted December 12th 2007 7:37AM
posted December 12th 2007 7:37AM
Microsoft's PlaysForSure DRM just took another step closer to the grave with the help of some rebranding. Those of you with players from SanDisk, Nokia, and Creative among others, looking for compatible music from Napster, Real Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, Wal-Mart and such must now look for the "Certified for Windows Vista" logo, not PlaysForSure. Of course, Microsoft's Zune is also certified for Windows Vista, just not certified for Windows Vista so it won't play back the same protected files. Man, could DRM get any more consumer unfriendly?
[Thanks, Andrew]
[Thanks, Andrew]
look up SUPER on google....any licenced and unlicenced song can be converted into ANY format and thus compatible with any mp3 player/cell phone/movie player for FREE
so then why are we paying for DRM'd music? (I'm not. I steal it.) Thats the whole point tho, we shouldn't have to covert the song to something else. It should be as simple as "here is your mp3....thanx for the 50 cents or whatever"
PlayForSure was a farce and a fraud to begin with. My dad's
eyesight is going so he was interested in Audio books from the
local library. Like most libraries in the US these days, his
local library uses NetLibrary (*cough*microsoft shill*cough*).
The instructions say that they can be used on any PlayForSure
certified player - great, just what he needs. He bought a
PlayForSure certified player (SanDisk, IIRC) and could not
get it to work. I looked into it and sure enough, the SanDisk
does not play the audiobook form. Yet it is certified!
So it was really MaybeItWillPlay-FeelLuckyPunk certified.
"The large print giveth, the small print taketh away"
- Tom Waits
Well, "Plays-for-Sure" was a pretty damn strange nomenclature to begin with...
Yes, but at least you knew what it was referring to. "Certified for Windows Vista" doesn't tell you a damned thing. How do they expect people to associate that with playing protected media files?
Stop buying C.R.A.P.
There is no defending Microsoft here. They are so far gone at this point, it's almost comical. And I'm not even comparing them to any other company - they've stepped beyond the realm of comparison with how far out of touch their consumer marketing is with consumers.
And I think that there should be some sort of lawsuit out there that keeps USB cables priced under $10. But then again, if you're stupid enough to pay $25 for a USB cable at Staples, I have some Windows Vista-certified avocados I'd like to sell you.
This reminds me of when stores would brand DVDs as "PS2 compatible!!" when that was a given for any DVD.
To brand hardware "Compatible for Windows Vista" is one thing, because that says it's ready out of the box, without needing to go to extra effort to get updated drivers and such. Branding a data file like that is just stupid.
Do I need my .txt files to be certified for windows vista? No. Way to go.
I'm all for purchasing a CD or digitally getting it from Amazon, or going gray market if need be.
Microsoft likes getting spanked by Apple. If not, they better learn to like it, because they keep positioning themselves to provide a better target.
I'm a happy subscription music user. It's a great option if you like to explore lots of new music (if you don't it's not). However, Microsoft hasn't been successful promoting it, and this is another bad move. Although I’ve spent hundreds of dollars happily renting music for years, I’ve never purchased DRMed music and never will.
Forking PlaysforSure into Zune was a bad and disturbing move, but it didn't really affect me directly. Changing it to "Certified for Windows Vista" is so boneheaded--it’s hard to see it surviving much longer. I think I should start looking for alternatives.
The Redmond Reality Distortion Field (RRDF) apparently allows them to convince one another that Vista will soon be ubiquitous. They should prepare for and encourage this by giving Vista more visibility; co-branding all those Zunes and music they’ll soon be selling, even forcing music partners to use Vista branding (‘till they’re extinguished by Zune). Its crazy; and they don’t appear to be coming up for air anytime soon.
What's really sad about this is the effect it's had on people like Creative. There was a time when Creative made some fine PMPs But they got sucked in by MS and they forgot that they make hardware and thought they were part of a music ecosystem. So instead of making devices that worked with plain old USB mass storage they had to first invent their own sync protocol and then shift to Microsoft's only to now find they're being left out in the cold again as their former partner tries to compete with them.
Meanwhile Apple have been playing the exact same game tieing their player to their software and every so often changing all the rules to make it awkward for 3rd parties to support. And all of this is in the name of corporate greed either from the brain dead and dying music industry or from the arrogant computer industry.
And it's the consumer who loses out from this persistent deliberately defective design.
Just Say No To DRM. m'kay?
is the Zune certified for vista .... LOL ...must ask it to a microsucks representative !
Ha to whoever said Zunes are poised to take over the world! Never. I own an iPod nano first generation. I love it. Zunes are so ugly. On the Vista subject, it is annoying how MS is attacking you with how if you don't go out and buy Vista right now, your computer will explode. I run XP, enough said.
And they still ask why the hell do people download free-DRM music from p2p's (ilegally)