Zune Pass Offers Unlimited Music, Until You Stop Subscribing
By Morelli
Penny Arcade is usually a gaming webcomic, but today, music is the focus after Microsoft aired a new commercial for the Zune Pass, which gives you unlimited music for fifteen dollars a month. The catch? If you stop subscribing to the service, all of your music gets erased. Penny Arcade says it best in today’s comic: “It’d be like you murdered all of your favorite artists.”
Granted, since a few major deals in Nov. 2008 (press release), the Zune Pass lets you choose ten songs to keep every month for your collection, but if you stop paying, the “obliteration” of the remainder holds true. Penny Arcade writer Jerry Holkins owns a Zune, and said that the new marketing campaign is “dumb”, while the rest of the internet is more intent on bashing the new face of Microsoft’s Zune, Wes Moss, and his lack of musical credentials. Watch the infamous advertisement after the jump:
Moss says it costs $30,000 to fill an iPod. To arrive at that number, I’m guessing Microsoft is ignoring file-sharing networks, CDs we borrow from friends and CDs we already own, as well as the many podcasts, audiobooks and movies that also take up space on the average iPod. In short, nobody is going to spend thirty thousand dollars on music.
Whether or not you like Moss, the Zune Pass presents a difficult decision. Do you subscribe, knowing that most of the music you download could be taken away as soon as you stop paying? Microsoft is essentially saying that, excluding the ten songs you get to keep, the music is never actually yours. You’re just renting it for as long as you’re willing to pay its monthly upkeep.
As Ars Technica points out, the ten tracks per month are insignificant, so the deal ends up resembling a “try before you buy” scheme that costs fifteen bucks. If you’re not emotionally invested in your digital music collection, then the service’s impermanent nature might not be too bothersome. I’ve discussed the value of digital music before, and the varied significance we attribute to the different formats of music (CD, vinyl, mp3) definitely comes into play when considering Microsoft’s proposal.
Is the Zune Pass a feasible alternative to iTunes (and other services), or is it completely ridiculous?
Image via penny-arcade.com
Source: Gizmodo, Fortune
Sunday, May 17, 2009 4:44PM
I fail to see how they expect people to use this. I feel the same for iTunes, yet somehow they're doing fine. Neither seems like good way to convince people from illegally downloading music, and zune's way is almost insulting.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009 10:24PM
Okay, lets see here.
1 buck a song (not counting taxes in some states)
30,000 songs.
$30,000… Read More
$30,000 / $15 = 2000 months
2000 / 12 (12 months in a year) = 166.6 years.
If I can't live forver, neither can my music.
Friday, June 12, 2009 3:25PM
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Friday, June 12, 2009 3:30PM
Once the music in in your Zune, how could it be taken away? Also, is there no way to burn these songs to cd? There has to be some program out there to fix the problem. There always is. For example: Can't put your Ipod's contents into a new computer?….Share pod. Tada! It seems very vulnerable to people taking advantage and figuring out a way to keep the songs. However, I just looked this up 2 minutes ago because the commercial intrigued me. So, please feel free to fill me in if I'm mistaken.
-Zack
http://www.myspace.com/delamour
Friday, June 12, 2009 3:31PM
Once the music in in your Zune, how could it be taken away? Also, is there no way to burn these songs to cd? There has to be some program out there to fix the problem. There always is. For example: Can't put your Ipod's contents into a new computer?….Share pod. Tada! It seems very vulnerable to people taking advantage and figuring out a way to keep the songs. However, I just looked this up 2 minutes ago because the commercial intrigued me. So, please feel free to fill me in if I'm mistaken.
Saturday, December 19, 2009 11:20PM
see thats the thing.. i used zune pass for a month and i still have the music i downloaded.. i think once u sign back into your zune account it expires the music so u can no longer hear it.. so i just havent signed into it and have had my 2000 songs that i downloaded still playable on my computer and zune for an extra two weeks.. hopefully it stays that way =)