Microsoft paying off the music industry

So M$ is launching a player to compete with Apple's iPod (good luck!) and to get other big corporations onboard they are paying them money from the players sold. Not just the songs sold. Gizmodo had a good take on this.

From Gizmodo:
"It appears Microsoft has struck a deal with Universal Music giving them a portion of the sales from every Zune they sell. This undermines the traditional strategy created by Apple where music labels received money from song downloads, and not player sales. Microsoft has also said that similar offers are on the table for other labels as well. Way to go.

I can see why they wanted to sweeten the pot just to make sure they got Universal onboard (Universal controls 1/3 of all music sold), but why did they need to try and make this standard procedure by offering it to the rest of the industry. Once again Microsoft kills the party for everyone else. – Ben Longo"