This was an ominous email that registered Zune users received yesterday under the subject line "Important! Zune licensing for protected purchases ends soon."
Important changes to your Zune® music purchases
As an original Zune customer, we appreciate you being a part of our music community from the start. As you know, we’ve continuously worked to evolve our music app and service, and with that evolution, some of our original licensing arrangements are expiring.
Our records show that you purchased music on Zune prior to 2012, so we’re writing to let you know thatas of March 12, 2017, we will no longer be issuing licenses to WMA-protected (DRM) tracks purchased prior to 2012. If you have not already obtained licenses for outstanding purchased DRM tracks, you will be unable to play WMA DRM files locally after March 11, 2017.
Act fast – download your tracks as MP3s
We want to make it as easy as possible to access the music you bought before our March transition, so at no additional charge, we’re allowing you to download MP3 versions of your purchased songs – either within the Windows 10 Groove Music app, or at music.microsoft.com.We strongly recommend that you convert any DRM music you’ve purchased from Zune into MP3 format so that you may continue to play it wherever you like. You may occasionally find a track that’s no longer in our catalog. For the workaround, visit our support page – it has all the answers for keeping you and your music together for good.
At first I thought it was the beginning of the end, but reading it over it still seems like the system will be available for subscription tracks, or at least is not addressed by this change of service. I have purchased and downloaded some WMA tracks, but
when I try the steps in the support document, linked below, it says the licenses are no longer available. Some or all of these tracks (Miles Davis On The Corner, Sly and the Family Stone Live at Woodstock are two of the albums) can not be burned to CD either.
Has anyone else purchased or downloaded WMA tracks as part of their 10 tracks/month subscription? Can you download replacement MP3 tracks as suggested?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/976590?ocid=1E5823FC-ABD7-4F97-8DEA-10578286DE1A&crm=groove