Microsoft to stop supporting Zune DRM music March 2017

At E3 2012, Microsoft introduced Xbox Music, a streaming service that allowed users to to listen to millions of songs through Microsoft’s own proprietary music platform. This Xbox Music was soon rebranded as the Groove music service that we’ve all grown to love today, along with the release of Windows 10. Now the The Groove catalog bosts over 38 million tracks for users on multiple platforms including Windows. iOS, and Android. But before both Groove Music and Xbox Music were ever available, Microsoft’s go to for music was its Zune service.

Microsoft’s Zune Music Pass offered unlimited access to songs for $9.99 per month, but included only 11 million tracks. The line of Zune players and the Zune music store were however unsuccessful, declining in use in the 2010’s, and Redmond finally retired the service November of 2015. While you were still able to use the Zune device as a music player, users were no longer able to stream or download content to your device. Well now, those who bought music from the Zune Marketplace before 2012 won’t be able to listen their DRM music file after March 12th, 2017.

Thankfully however, all hope is not lost, as Microsoft is allowing you to get MP3 versions of your purchased songs at no extra cost, and currently there’s no deadline on how long you have to do this. All you have to do is head over to music.microsoft.com to whenever you get the chance and pick up the non-DRM MP3s in your collection.