I’m sure you know about the Zune’s wireless music sharing capabilities, but I bet you didn’t know that Microsoft wants to pay you a commission when someone purchases a song you have shared! I didn’t either, until I saw this post over at ZuneScene describing a recently discovered Microsoft patent application:

According to the patent, Microsoft would like to erect a system by which pirated music (yes the term pirated is used in the document several times) can be transferred to other Zune devices, and the sender can be paid a sales commission. Of course this would work with legally obtained music also.

Apparently the idea is to make pirated music “encrypted” when shared with another Zune. If I understand this correctly, it works like this. I have a DRM-free song on my Zune and I send it to your Zune. You can then play the song three times, before you have to purchase it. When you do, Zune Marketplace, me, and the copyright holder all get paid.

Converting illegal music into legal music is an interesting concept, but I am not sure how well such a system would work in practice.

You can view the patent details here.

Microsoft announced today a series of summer events called Zune Live at the BBQ which aim to “celebrate hip-hop music and the community that surrounds it.” Here are the details on tickets and artists:

The concert hits Los Angeles on July 12, Chicago on July 22, and New York City on Aug. 4. Viral invitations will be sent to fans, and they will be asked to register at a special Web site to receive their ticket.

Artists confirmed to participate in Live at the BBQ include Common, David Banner, UGK, Mos Def, Bilal, Clipse, Collie Budz, E-40, Cham, and Large Professor.

Viral invitations? What does that even mean?

Looks like it doesn’t matter. All you have to do is register at the Zune Live at the BBQ website. You need to give your name, email, date of birth, and phone number.

If you’re in one of the three lucky cities, have fun!

The news that Weedshare has closed its doors isn’t new, evidently, but I just came across it today (more coverage lately for some reason). I remember hearing about it once before, but even I needed a refresher on just what the service was all about, so here you go:

Weedshare was a digital download platform that used “viral” DRM in combination with a multi-level marketing approach to sell content of indie musicians. Musicians could distribute Weedshare files through their own website, official download locations and P2P networks. Users could listen to a file three times before purchasing it.

Interesting idea, I suppose, but choosing to use DRM put the nail in the coffin right from the get-go. Weedshare used Windows Media Audio files, meaning that the music could only be played with software and devices that supported Microsoft’s DRM schemes. Many reports make it sound like Microsoft is responsible for Weedshare’s demise:

Weedshare was smoked by Microsoft, whose latest version of Windows Media Player was incompatible with Weedshare files.

There is no information on the issues and attempts of SML to convert or translate Weedshare files to be compatible with Microsoft’s latest software.

As with all things however, there is another side to the story:

CD Baby was supposedly Weedshare’s largest content provider, with 60.000 titles available at the end of 2004. Still, 15 months later, CD Baby artists had only made a total of 1348 dollars, which means that Weedshare sold less than 3000 songs of the CD Baby catalogue during that time.

Sounds kind of like Weedshare was going nowhere fast and simply blamed its woes on Windows Media Player 11. The lack of mainstream coverage would seem to support this.