Microsoft tries everything to tackle the portable music player overlord Apple. Now they give Vivendi Universal Music a Share of the Zune Sales.

No, Universal Music is not giving any free content for that. It is just some 'nice gesture' from Microsoft. Other large labels got the same offer from MS. No details have been revealed though on how much the studios get from Zune sales.

Maybe it does not matter much financially for Universal music.
USA Today just reviewed the Zune, and the reviewer's verdict is that he sticks to his iPod. That you only can buy songs on the Zune marketplace with points and not directly with money is very strange. The whole not supporting PlaysForSure is another weird choice by Microsoft. Plus the DRM restrictions on shared music files (you can only play it 3 times) and that it is bigger than a iPod video make this a real shaky product in my opinion.

More details on Bloomberg and on Reuters.

The Zune will ship in 5 days on November 14th. Zune pre-order is available on Amazon.com.