Yahoo dumps Music Unlimited
p2pnet news | Music:- With RealNetworks’ RealPlayer officially labelled BadWare by the prestigious Stopbadware.org, Yahoo has decided to drop its own failed subscription music effort in favour of Rhapsody, offered by RealNetworks and MTV Networks.
“The deal leaves Rhapsody, Napster and Microsoft’s Zune Pass as the last subscription services standing, with Zune Pass being available only to consumers who buy a Zune MP3 player,” says the Los Angeles Times.
For ’subscription’ read ‘rental,’ and for rental read music which dies as soon as you stop forking out a monthly fee.
Not surprisingly, it was a non-starter despite the hype and mainstream coverage pushing it as a going concern.
“Previous casualties include MTV’s Urge, AOL’s MusicNet, Sony Music and Universal Music Group’s Pressplay, and Circuit City’s MusicNow,” says the story, going on:
Put another way, some of the biggest names on the Web, the music industry and electronics retailing have ventured into the subscription music market, only to be forced into retreat.
Actually, it wasn’t that corporate music industry and its adherents were forced into retreat; it was that online music lovers aren’t stupid.
“The move will happen in the first half of this year,” says the Mercury News. “The companies also plan to work together on a download-to-own music service,” it has the company’s Ian Rogers saying.
Financial details of the “multi-year” agreement won’t disclose, says the story.
But realNetworks isn’t the only company to have had trouble with its music offerings,
When Yahoo first started touting music delivery, Robert Chapin uncovered a, “very large hole in Yahoo’s new music ’service’,” p2pnet wrote, going on, “although he’s been trying to tell someone at Yahoo about it, he hasn’t been having much luck.”
Now, no need to bother —- unless anyone starts to wonder if Rhapsody has similar problems to RealPlayer.
Stay tuned.
Also See:
officially labelled BadWare – RealPlayer branded badware, February 1, 2005
Los Angeles Times – If Yahoo can’t do it …, February 4, 2005
Mercury News – Yahoo cuts music deal with RealNetworks, February 4, 2005
very large hole – Yahoo Music Unlimited hack, May 30, 2005
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- ic Unlimn
February 4th, 2008 at 10:01 am
““The deal leaves Rhapsody, Napster and Microsoft’s Zune Pass as the last subscription services standing, with Zune Pass being available only to consumers who buy a Zune MP3 player,” says the Los Angeles Times.”
What of iMesh? it is also a subscription based and sales service. I am currently a re-subscriber
after having been disapointed by the Qtrax fiasco. I see value in rentals as a service. I don’t imagine I ever “own” the music. Whenever you “rent” anything and you stop paying the fee it of course “disapears” the question is not was it “yours as in you owned it” but do you find value in the service?
Try not paying your ISP, or the gas/electric/water company. You keep paying on a continous basis for those things or they disapear. Yes you can save the Internet on your hard drive and and stop paying your ISP, it will never be up to date, but hey you don’t have to pay for it every month.
I also look at it this way. For $15 a month I get more enjoyment at considerably less money that cigs, booze and lottery tickets combined that some people spend a bigger chunk of change on. If that’s what makes them happy, fine. “Renting” music is okay with me to. Of course if Qtyrax ever gives it away for free that’s even better.
February 5th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
I like the Italian approach (legalization), building on the “fair use” concept. Why shouldn’t people be able to freely exchange what they OWN — in any way they choose? The RIAA pigopolists should go after people who are creating CDs and DVDs to sell, not people who are just trying to discover new and overlooked music. They are basically shooting themselves in the foot, because consumers will remember how they have been treated (like criminals) and then choose non-RIAA outlets for the music they get. Why not have an industry-based fee on media that is also supported by the artists, to pay for their music? So you could get a Pearl Jam blank CD, then download their music and customize it. Let’s expand consumer choices in an innovative way, instead of mucking things up with DRM. I bought some iTunes and then discovered that I couldn’t even burn them in that format to a CD! Let the free market, and internet work. We will prevail!
February 6th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Visionaerie, I am sorry to clue you in on the law but you never OWN the music whether purchased on a CD or downloaded from the internet. You might own the physical CD or the digital file, but you never OWN the content on that CD. The ownership of the content remains with the record/label band. The only think you are allowed to do with that content is to listen to it and enjoy.
So I am not sure why you think you should be able to freely exchange content that it never yours in the first place.