Yesterday I reported how NBC has decided to get in to bed with Microsoft and offer individual episodes of its shows through the online Zune Store.
When NBC pulled all of its programming from Apple iTunes late last year after an argument with the iPod manufacturer, the two reasons cited for the falling out were pricing, and a lack of stringent filtering measures for pirated material.
The Coupling Becomes Clear
It didn’t immediately seem clear why NBC had now agreed to similar conditions from Microsoft when they wouldn’t accept them from Apple. However, after the New York Times spoke to J. B. Perrette, the president of digital distribution for NBC Universal, things may have become a little clearer.
On the pricing policy, it seems that as well as being open to changes to prices in the future, Microsoft is willing to absorb the higher wholesale costs NBC were demanding, allowing the shows to still be sold for $1.99 apiece.
Copyright Policeman
While on the piracy filtering issues, Microsoft have promised even more. It looks as though future models of the Zune will be equipped with a copyright policeman.
Perrette said:
“[The plan is to create] filtering technology that allows for playback of legitimately purchased content versus non-legitimately purchased content.”
In essence, this means that anyone trying to play the latest episode of Heroes, which they have just downloaded from BitTorrent, on their Zune, may be out of luck.
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