EFF thinks the Zune will not play protected WMA and WMV content, a move that, well, baffles us. According to the press release yesterday, Microsoft did not mention any protected WMA playback, but did mention unprotected WMA playback.
Does this make sense? How will Microsoft even have the music store, the Zune Marketplace, without any sort of WMA protection? And since MS said the store will have purchasing music along with a subscription option, how will they protect their subscription music without protected WMAs?
Our educated guess is that the Zune will support WMA and PlaysForSure, the format used by Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo! Unlimited. It just doesn’t make sense for them not to.
Microsoft’s Zune Won’t Play Protected Windows Media [EFF via Boing Boing]