Well, it didn’t take long. The first Zune virus has been spotted in the wild. The virus prevents users from wirelessly sharing songs with other Zune users using the much hyped “Social” feature of the Zune. Apparently this afflicts a huge percentage of the music purchased from the Zune store.
Actually, technically, it probably isn’t right to call it a virus. It’s more like a trojan horse, and as it turns out, it managed to infect Zunes before they even left the factory. It was placed by Microsoft and the major records labels.
Yup, you’ve got it right. The Zune’s major distinguishing feature is “The Social,” the ability to beam songs that self-destruct after a few listens to other Zune users (if you can even find them), and then they go ahead and make the feature broken by design in order to appease record labels who don’t want free promotion.
The record labels are even worse. The promotion isn’t free, it’s actually revenue generating, because Universal (one of the major record labels) get $1 for every Zune sold. Moreover, it’s not just promotion, it’s people recommending things to their friends, which has got to carry more weight than just about any promotional channel.