Engadget reports, in a “non-scientific sampling,” that Sony has disabled Zune’s song sharing feature for “popular artists by Zunerama and Zune Thoughts.” They go on: “it looks like it’s roughly 40-50 percent of artist that fall under this prohibited banner, and the worst news is that there’s no warning that a song might be unsharable until you actually try to send it and fail.”
In related (DRM) news, cNet reported yesterday that “Apple plans to make it possible for people to listen to iTunes’ songs on devices other than iPods, according to a published report.” I’m pretty sure this move has been hastened along by EU action (certainly not by US government action).
The DRM wars are, of course, yet another version of standards wars (think Blue Ray, Beta/VHS, CDMA/GSM …). But DRM is also about protecting institutions (and their markets) from disruptive technology.
