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As you may have seen there is a story around the internet the last days about Universal and Sony restricting the Zune's Wifi sharing. ZuneInsider has an official Zune team's statement on this...
I've seen a few reports circulating the web that Universal and Sony are placing restrictions on Zune to Zune wireless sharing. These reports are merely speculative, and flat out incorrect. The Zune team is working closely with these and other labels, both indie and major, and the support for the wireless sharing feature has been strong. Here's the official Microsoft statement on wireless sharing:
The Zune wireless sharing feature is a new experience for consumers and for the music industry and we will continue to make it better. We have seen strong support for this feature from Universal Music Group and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, as well as from other major and independent labels and music publishers, including BMG Music Publishing, Digital Music Group Inc., EMI Music, EMI Music Publishing, Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA), peermusic.com Inc., Sony/ATV Music Publishing, Sub Pop Records, SuperEgo Records, Warner Music Group, Warner/Chappell Music and many more. We will continue to work with the music industry to expand the number of songs that can be sent.
You may have noticed that UMG and Sony BMG are the first labels I listed there. The Zune team is working closely with these and other labels, both indie and major, and the support for the wireless sharing feature has been strong. It's true, not every song can be sent. The idea of send is new, and its implementation is in a 1.0 stage. The team is continually working to improve the send technology and we're working with industry partners to expand the number of songs can be sent. Edit 10:22 AM PDT: I also talked to a guy over at Universal Music Group, and here's the official statement from UMG:
Contrary to recent and inaccurate reports, UMG has not prohibited its artists from participating in the Zune service. Nor has UMG restricted the ability of Zune users to transfer their music wirelessly so that others can enjoy it.
Along with Microsoft, UMG is working to offer the most extensive array of chart topping artists and hit music in the world to all Zune users. [via ZuneInsider]
The background of this storyZuneThoughts while in CES 2007 had the opportunity to try and share tracks using Wifi with other Zune users of the Mobius team (read more). Information ZuneThoughts had, talked about 50% of the tracks in MarketPlace to be restricted. ZuneRama did an experiment. He downloaded the top50 from the Zune MarketPlace using his Zune Pass. He then tried to beam these tracks to his wife's Zune but he counted 21 tracks failing with an error (read more). After this ClicZune noticed some tracks of Universal and Sony from the list, which failed to beam. He also noticed some others from the same two companies which succeeded (read more). And here is Engadget's article which broke the news about this. Wouldn't be a better idea if the Zune MarketPlace had marked the non-shareable tracks? Till today the only official information from Zune team about the issue is that some tracks may not be available for sharing. Even in this announcement today they don't mention anything more. Sorry not enough...
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Right here he's either confirming what he's denying or implying a crappy implementation by Microsoft. Either way, no thanks.