An interesting article from BetaNews sheds some light on how desperately Microsoft wants to get their Zune player into the market, and exactly what effect this could have on the whole paradigm of digital music recording, storage, and playback.

Until recently, hardware manufacturers have steered clear of the legal minefield surrounding the playback of non-DRM encodings on their units. Citing the argument of "Fair use", they have insisted that whatever the general public do with their MP3 players is no business of theirs and prefer to assume that users will only use content that they own. Unfortunately though, because of the complex royalty deal that Microsoft has apparently set up with Universal Music Group, this impartiality of the hardware manufacturers appears to have been put under considerable doubt.

Like Apple and Sony with their respective iTunes and Connect stores, Microsoft has licenced the DRM-based download of songs to the Zune with Universal Music Group (UMG). Nothing particularly strange about that, we may say. However, the deal that Microsoft has signed with UMG is not only about payments for songs downloaded, but surprisingly also involves a proportional royalty payment for every Zune player sold. Whilst on the face of it this may not seem too serious, it is important that everyone knows that a line drawn in the sand has been crossed: hardware manufacturers are now responsible for royalties paid to the content providers, and that therefore they are immediately under the influence of the music industry.

Those readers of a certain age may remember the landmark decision taken by the US Supreme Court in the 1980's, which upheld the independence of the VCR manufacturers against the content providers and established the notion of fair use of recordings for personal viewing. Although the payment of royalties on blank media subsequently crept in, most consumers have been happy to pay a bit extra to get the media for making their own recordings, whether it be VHS, CD, or DVD. At one stroke, however, it would seem as though this understanding has been dashed by the very short-sighted deal between Microsoft and UMG.

We can only hope that the worst will not happen, and that Apple, Sony and the various other hardware MP3 player manufacturers will not get pursued by enthusiastic content providers anxious to choke off the use of personal recordings. Consumers watch out: there may be no such thing as 'Fair use' for much longer...