p2pnet.net News:- Robert Chapin has found a very large hole in Yahoo’s new music ’service’ and although he’s been trying to tell someone at Yahoo about it, he hasn’t been having much luck.

The new Yahoo! Music Unlimited rentals are being heralded by many as the Path to the Future, at least as far as corporate music offerings are concerned.

It’s selling Big Music DRM-ed WMA downloads for a $5-a-month subscription. With Music Unlimited, songs can be transferred to “subscription-compatible devices” (except iPods, of course). Or punters can fork out 79 cents to “buy” burnable downloads.

“Subscription” means as soon as users stop paying, the music dies. Stone dead. So forget about creating a permanent library of sounds.

But there’s an alternative, says Chapin, who runs Chapin Information Services in Michigan.

You can simply forget all of the above and get Yahoo downloads without paying a cent, a reality he told us he’s been trying to pass to Yahoo with a marked lack of success.

“My first report to them by e-mail went unanswered,” he told p2pnet late last week. “As a last resort I chatted up the 24/7 online tech support. Surprisingly, all that got me was a phone number to a closed office.”

What’s the hack?

Chapin explained the exploit, and told us how it’s used.

With p2pnet on the other end of an email, he directly downloaded a Theory Of A Deadman – Hello Lonely (Walk Away From This) wma at 128kbps. For nothing.

Nor do you have to be a technical genius.

Anyone could use it.

Chapin eventually posted a public press release on his web site and is now waiting to hear from Yahoo

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UPDATE, 9:10 am, PST: Just after we posted this, “This morning I received a reply from one of the e-mails to Yahoo,” Chapin emailed us. “This was from an address at Yahoo Privacy I found by using Google. The other phones, faxes, and live chats over the past 4 days went unanswered.

“We performed some additional tests to find the exact
problem, and determined it is unlikely to expose any personal user
information. Only the music-related data are at risk.”

Stay tuned.

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