how-to bypass Zune’s DRMed WiFi
in what can be described as a precautious concession to the music industry, Microsoft decided to cripple the most interesting feature that might have put their recently released Zune media-player atop of Apples predominant iPod series: the ability to share tracks with other Zune-users over WiFi is restricted to DRMed songs purchased/rented from zune.net. transmitted songs can be played back three times within three days, before finally expiring. legal media without DRM-restrictions (f.e. podcasts) are excluded from WiFi-sharing - a major bummer, and - I guess - a major opportunity missed by Microsoft to own the areas of audio- & video-blogs.
it was only a matter of time until smart hacks allow zune-users to fully utilize the wireless capabilities of their devices. a workaround that popped up at Gizmodo today, allows wireless sharing of any filetype by renaming the files to .jpg. the catch of this ridiculously simple ‘hack’ seems to be, that both sending & receiving Zune have to to the renaming from a connected PC. however, I’m optimistic that when the Zune finally hits europe’s shelves in march 2007, we’ll have plenty of patches to overcome such restricitions… 
This is a killer innovation and that Microsoft was not able to cut the appropriate deal with the RIAA is a shame. I have for some time envisioned the ability for users of a music/video music service to share content between one another, a sort of tiered system. Users at the “Platinum” level for example would be able to share content with a member of their “friends” circle who also have the same paid level of service. If you have a great cut of Stereophonics and I have one of Guster, we could swap with one another. DBMS and DRM systems are sophisticated enough that you could track who has swapped content and if they are entitled to it..
I agree 101%, wireless sharing without those restrictions would have been such a killer argument for the zune…
I like your “circle of friends” idea… I think you can develop this idea even further: microsoft could have leveraged zune-owners as “extended sales-force”… let’s say I buy the new portishead-album at zune.net, and since I like it I beam it to my friends zune. he than has the chance to give it a listen for a few times, after which he has to decide if he wants to buy a permanent copy. if he does, microsoft credits my zune-account with a small percentage of the generated revenue - a win for everyone