Yahoo Music store d-e-a-d DEAD
p2pnet news view Music | Products:- There’s nothing on the current Yahoo Music store page to indicate it’s all-but d-e-a-d DAID.
But it is.
“The Yahoo! Music Store, along with the ability to purchase and download single songs and albums, will no longer be available as of September 30, 2008,” says a missive.
It goes on »»»
Songs and albums that were purchased through the Yahoo! Music Unlimited Store are protected by a digital rights management system that requires a valid license key before they can be played on your computer.
After the Store closes, Yahoo! will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for music purchased from Yahoo! Music Unlimited, and Yahoo! will no longer be able to authorize song playback on additional computers.
After September 30, 2008, you will not be able to transfer songs to unauthorized computers or re-license these songs after changing operating systems. Please note that your purchased tracks will generally continue to play on your existing authorized computers unless there is a change to the computer’s operating system.
For any user who purchased tracks through Yahoo! Music Unlimited, we highly recommend that you back up the purchased tracks to an audio CD before the closing of the Store on September 30, 2008. Backing up your music to an audio CD will allow you to copy the music back to your computer again if the license keys for your original music files cannot be retrieved.
For further information on the closing of the Yahoo! Music Store, please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions or contact Customer Care.
Stay tuned! While the Yahoo! Music Unlimited Store will no longer be available, Yahoo! Music has partnered with Rhapsody so you can still purchase your favorite tracks. Plus, Yahoo! Music will continue to offer users a complete online music experience with the largest collection of music videos, Internet radio, exclusive artist features, music news, and more!
Thank you for using Yahoo! Music.
Says the EFF’s (Electronic Frontier Foundation) Corynne McSherry »»»
Just over a month after consumer backlash caused MSN Music to rescind its decision to deactivate the digital rights management (”DRM”) servers that allowed MSN Music purchasers to “reauthorize” music files after upgrading operating systems or buying new computers, Yahoo! Music has decided to deactivate its own DRM servers.
The ironically named Yahoo! Music Unlimited Store will shut its virtual doors in September, and, as of October 1, will no longer provide license keys for music purchased from the store, nor will it authorize song playback on additional computers. That means Yahoo! Music customers will not be able to transfer songs to “unauthorized computers” or access the songs after changing operating systems. Yahoo! advises customers to back up their music to a CD if they want to be able to access it in the future. In other words, Yahoo! wants its customers to invest more time, labor and money in order to continue to enjoy the music for which they have already paid. In fact, the more music they bought, the more work they’ll have to do. What is worse, this suggestion could put customers at legal risk, as they may not have documentation of purchase. Furthermore, there is no certainty that all relevant copyright owners would agree that making such backup copies without permission is lawful.
We’ve warned music fans for years that they could lose their DRM-wrapped music if vendors decided to withdraw support for it. Nonetheless, we hoped that the experience of MSN Music would encourage other vendors to think twice before making their customers pay the price for the vendors’ own faulty business decisions.
If Yahoo! wants to make things right, it should do the following:
- Issue a full public apology to your Yahoo! Music customers.
- Offer to refund the purchase price of the affected downloads or, at the customer’s option, provide replacements from an online store that offers the same tracks in a DRM-free format.
- Ensure that all Yahoo! Music buyers have (or have permanent access to) receipts identifying dates, amounts, and titles purchased, so they have proofs of purchase. Or, better yet, offer to cover their legal costs if they are hit with a copyright infringement claim based on a song purchased through Yahoo! Music.
- Widely publicize the above measures so that Yahoo! customers know their options. That publicity should include, at a minimum, advertising in major music magazines and newspapers in every major U.S. city, as well as targeted keyword advertising.
At the very least, this announcement is further evidence (if such evidence were needed) that DRM is just bad business. It’s bad for the consumers who don’t actually own the music they pay for; it’s bad for the rightsholders who lose out when legal copies of their songs are worth less than illegally obtained copies; and it’s bad for the companies that must choose between maintaining technology that is defective by design or violating the trust of their customers.
Like Yahoo suggests, stay tuned.
.
.Stumble It!
EFF – Here We Go Again: Yahoo! Music Throws Away the DRM Keys, July 24, 2008
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July 25th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Don’t download from P2P, buy from us. Yea, right !!!
July 25th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
” Don’t download from P2P, buy from us. Yea, right !!! ”
You mean ‘Rent’ not buy.
The label stores say stuff like “own your copy” , “Buy yours today” .. but
fail to mention it’s really like renting. In their eyes it’s NEVER really yours,
even CD purchases.
July 26th, 2008 at 1:49 am
to quote something I read a while back:
“Piracy, the better choice!”
your Microsoft based operating systen will get the hickups in october?
No problem! (If you used [for example] TPB and one of the trusted uploaders [those with the green skull next to their name] to get your music, that is of course!)
While all your honestly payed Yahoo music is just datagarbage when that happends the “better choice”-supplied files can still be played.
And if you lose the files themself that’s also no problem!
Normaly you can just redownload “better choice”-offerings without any hastle or having to pay for a second time for stuff you already payed once! (you did send those innovative artist whose music you had downloaded some money via his “paypal donation for the download”-account he had setup, didn’t you?)
Note that this redownload option will not work if you are a fan (who is?) of Indiana Gregg and her nearly half dozend myspace pages in: the world [indianagregg], canada[indianagreggcanada] germany[indianagregggermany], sweden[...], france[...] and bunny land [savebunny]!
Her torrent is deadly then the yahoo store!
So if you are one of the alleged
-but in no way with evidence proven-
250000 guys that have her album allegedly downloaded then you are out of luck when you lose it!
No redownload possible in that specific case!
P.S.
Oh and the suggestion of Yahoo to burn a CD of the songs and rerip that CD into some more friendly stuff like MP3, so that the songs don’t turn into datagarbage in October: THAT is the worst suggestion ever! When you do that you get quality (due to the fact that when you burn a CD out of the lossy DRM-WMA files in the first place you don’t get CDDA quality with that selfburned CD in contrast to a genuine industry-pressed CD) with those re-ripped files that is even worse then if you would tape the songs from AM radio!
The moral of yet another story of a DRM shop that closes the same is: If you must support those evil 4 terrorist in the first place, then at least be so smart and by physical CD’s. Those you can RIP without loss of quality into FLAC and then you can transcode those into lossy mp3, wma or whatever your portable player eats, anytime you want to. Do not pay for DRM-Datagarbage if you want to be considered smart in your peergroup!
July 27th, 2008 at 3:02 am
Great ad for DRM filled lossy crap which is supposed to appeal to honest people. We see how they treat honest people. Really it appeals only to gullible newbs, and now hopefully all those stung will turn to bit torrent to download better quality versions for free, like they shoulda done in the first place.
July 27th, 2008 at 3:05 am
Don’t worry about bloated flac either, mp3 is fine. Look for vbr versions which can be as good as you can get.