Microsoft has filed for a patent application that would allow Zune users to get paid for sharing any song in their library. This would be an extension of the ability that Zune users have to share songs wirelessly already.

Currently, a shared track can be played three times after which you are given the option to buy the song from the Microsoft Zune Marketplace. Microsoft is now considering the option of paying Zune users a percentage of revenue generated from the tracks they have shared.

Microsoft has a few bugs to work out, however. The system in its current form will pay users even if the song they are sharing is a standard MP3 file. This is because when a song is shared from a Zune, it wraps its own DRM around the song that is transferred to the other player. Therefore any shared song still has a play limit of three times regardless if it was originally DRM’ed or not.

In theory, a user could get paid for sharing MP3 files. This probably isn’t what Microsoft has in mind but the system in its current form doesn’t differentiate between different file formats. Then again this could potentially make Microsoft more money.

The music industry is already moving away from DRM anyway and according to Last100, this idea could be dead before it even gets off the ground.

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Entry was posted on Friday, July 13th, 2007 at 12:50 pm under Microsoft.

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.
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