The New York Times is reporting some disturbing news for privacy advocates, when they are claiming that Microsoft may be planning to rat you out to copyright holders.  Future firmware updates for the Zune might include software that can notify Microsoft or programming originators if you are playing content that may have been downloaded through sources such as BitTorrent.

If you’ve been following similar news over the past few months, you might not even need two guesses as to who was integral to the origination of this news.  NBC announced recently that they would be moving their programming to Microsoft’s upcoming iTunes competitor, and it wouldn’t be completely imaginative to assume that NBC may have pressured Microsoft into considering the content sniffing technology.

While Microsoft was quick to offer updated spin concerning the report, the NBC Universal President of Digital Distribution had already let loose some details of their talks with the software conglomerate. Before Microsoft had attempted to debunk the information, NBC had already let loose that they intend to create “filtering technology that allows for playback of legitimately purchased content versus non-legitimately purchased content.”

Moral of the story?  If you are at all interested in playing back your own content regardless of the source, iTunes / iPod is still the way to go until Apple also decides its cool to narc.

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