35 Days Against DRM -- Day 9: Zune

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Thanks for all your great submissions so far.

Thanks to:

  • Jeremy Wahl
  • Mike McCarty
  • Mason Perler
  • Dale Maggee
  • Trista Wallebeck

For their submissions. If you haven't yet begun working on your submission yet, you still have a little while to get it in, but don't delay or your chosen subject may already be written about.

We're also looking for a list of games that use SecuROM -- get in contact with those.

Today, we're promoting upcoming events in Boston, reaching out to groups to create their own events, and bringing you a short DRM-story.

Act 1 -- Anti-DRM actions in your town!

On Friday, we brought you the early news on our plans for physical protests against DRM. From December 10th until December 24th, staff, members and friends of Defective by Design will be at the Borders bookstore on School St in Downtown Boston, protesting the sale of DRM-laden products, from Blu-Ray DVDs and iTunes Gift Cards to the Sony Reader (aka the Shredder) and iPod -- join us at 1pm this Wednesday!

Create an event in your area -- a few hours is all you need. We'll give you everything you need!

Your event can be about anything related to DRM -- Kindle, Sony Reader, Blu Day, Netflix, Overdrive, iTunes, Wii... anything you can think of!

Act 2 -- Zune: The DRM Bait and Switch from Microsoft

by Trista Wallebeck

This item is laden with DRM in order for Microsoft to be able to proclaim it as "music industry friendly" when it is completely user-unfriendly.

This device allows you to send your music (over a proprietary wireless format) to another Zune user. The song sent is then playable for either 3 days or 3 plays, whichever comes first. Then, perhaps most odiously of all, once the song has "expired" it sits there in your music list grayed out... taunting you. Microsoft claims this is to "remind you" of the song information should you want to purchase it in the future.

Zune equals FAIL

Everything with this device is proprietary and locked down according to what Microsoft says you should be able to do, and allows nothing else.

Take action!

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