Zune Marketplace Songs Play For Sure

Oh, DRM. You are the cause of so many headaches on both sides of the consumer fence, but at the same time, you seem to be that necessary evil that the record industry needs to protect their valued content. When Microsoft took the plunge and abandoned PlaysForSure in favor of a whole new DRM system for the Zune, people were concerned that compatibility would be an issue. Apparently those concerns were for naught.

While it still appears to be true that PlaysForSure content won’t work on a Zune, the reverse is completely hunky doory. You can seemingly drag songs from the Zune Marketplace onto any PlaysForSure device, like offerings from Rio and Creative. I haven’t tested it myself, since I don’t have a PlaysForSure MP3 player, but if true, it shows that the two DRM systems aren’t all that different from one another.