Regarding *your* experience, I stand corrected. I've been using ZP & ZM for two years. Never had the problem as you described, never lost ANY music I bought.

Perhaps subscribers receive preferential treatment.

The simple solution may be for you to purchase music elewhere; Amazon MP3 for example.

To clarify things just a bit, a ZunePass subscription allows you to DL music to be played on your PC and synced to your Zune. It's not a purchase, it's basically leasing the rights to listen to it. If and when a record label renegotiates its licensing contract with MS/ZM, they may or may not renew the license for music that some may have "leased" through the subscription service.

If you actually purchase music or videos through Zune Marketplace instead of DL-ing subscription content, you own the content and there is no DRM. You can listen to it, burn it to discs, and, for those of you so inclined, upload it to your favorite illegal sharing service with no hassles.

If you fail to backup your music library and want to re-DL previously purchased tracks (which sounds like Rjak's problem) you will indeed need to buy the tracks again.

If you understand the difference between a subscription and a purchase and back-up your files, you'll never have a problem with Zune MarketPlace.

As for the software being buggy, the biggest factor in load times relates to how many available resources your PC has. My Zune software loads in about 15 seconds.

Don't get me wrong, DRM sucks, but so do people that don't bother to understand a system and then blame said system for their ignorance.

I "tested" it with an image of Gord Downie holding a microphone in the wash of a blue spotlight. The tags this "groundbreaking" program suggested were:

building city modern historical architecture people ocean_animal fish sub_sea water space cyber art ocean sport

Only one "suggested" tag is relevant. Too bad so much time and effort went into such a waste of time and effort.