*Source: Wired News (
http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/07/...t-paten.html)*
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A patent filed by Microsoft last December (a month after the Zune was released) shows that Microsoft and Apple are thinking along the same lines when it comes to enabling users to copy music between their wireless devices.
Certain cellphones already allow you to do this via Bluetooth file transfer, but Microsoft's patented idea (click image to expand) would take the concept further, by allowing users to trade MP3s that may have come from file sharing networks to one another, expiring the song on the recipient's device after three plays, unless the user pays Microsoft a fee in order to continue to listen to the track, with a percentage going to the person who provided the song. As the abstract puts it, "even [the] resale of pirated media content [can] benefit... the copyright holder."
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