Yahoo Music follows MSN into DRM controversy

Yahoo is shutting off support for Yahoo Music after September 30, which means starting October 1, if users want to move music to new hard drives or computers, they will be out of luck.

The Los Angeles Times reported Thursday that Yahoo Music alerted customers in an e-mail that it will no longer release keys to unlock digital rights management on its music. Sound familiar?

I've just spoken with a Yahoo spokeswoman who said that the move was announced earlier this year as part of Yahoo Music's partnership with RealNetwork's Rhapsody music service. Yahoo Music users will be allowed to transfer their music libraries to the new service.

That's fine for people who just used Yahoo's subscription service. If they choose not to make the jump to Rhapsody, well, they knew going in that when they stopped paying they would lose their libraries. But what about the people who purchased songs from Yahoo Music? That music was also wrapped in DRM.

Yep, these people will be prevented from transferring songs after the deadline.

Surprisingly, Yahoo has chosen to dive headlong into a controversy that entangled Microsoft earlier this year. MSN took a public relations lashing in April after announcing it would no longer furnish authorization keys for music purchased from the defunct MSN Music service. The keys unlock the copy-protection software built into these companies' songs and without them, music owners can't transfer them to new computers or digital music players.

Without the keys, the music is stuck. If a user's computer goes on the fritz, say good-bye to Yahoo's music.

To Microsoft's credit, it announced last month that it was extending the deadline and would continue issuing keys for three more years. Yahoo should have learned a lesson there. The Yahoo spokeswoman said the company has spent six months warning people to back up their music to disc. The problem with this, however, is that you lose sound quality.

Yahoo's decision will surely draw the anti-DRM crowd, which will use the situation to illustrate how DRM-wrapped music can never be truly owned by consumers. Copy-protection schemes allow companies to snatch the music away at any time.

[iertry]

This move and the similar one by Microsoft could be easily stopped. If the music companies would allow them to issue a patch/static key that unlocks all the DRM content bought by its users there would be no problem. This is like a record store telling you that you can only play the CD you bought on one CD player, no others. It shouldn't be allowed. Thank goodness I use iTunes.

[VballJ]

iTunes isn't any better unless you get the iTunes Plus songs. Otherwise, Apple can choose to do the same thing to all of the DRM'd songs anytime they want to.

[Penguinisto]

Actually, w/ iTunes, you can (very) easily unlock the music without any need to have any new DRM keys issued... something you can't do in Yahoo or MSN Music.

[thedreaming]

Itunes also uses drm, just thought I would remind you of that. What they should all do and some are is to drop drm all together. Itunes and zune marketplace offer mp3s and all of napster's library is now mp3. Amazon also offers nothing but mp3s so that's the real solution. Don't use drm in the first place!

[`WarpKat]

I actually used Rhapsody subscription and had no problem with it. I actually liked the idea of being able to listen to what I want on my player since that's what I mostly use and I have no problem purchasing an MP3 album from them at a lower cost of $8.99, which is very reasonable compared to what it used to be per CD in a store. $15.99? $19.99?

Rhapsody is actually moving in the right direction, slowly, but surely.

[oneoclock]

I don't buy music online, I buy CDs, and 9 out of 10 CDs I buy second hand, hardly ever pay more than $9 per CD. This way I convert everything myself using the latest codecs and I always have a backup for all my music which nobody can take away (well, expect for burglars perhaps).

[richard mitnick]

First, no one needs Yahoo! music or Rhapsody if what they want to do is buy non-protected .mp3 music files. All anyone needs is Amazon. Quick, priced right, especially for multi-disc packages, but also per song, high bit rates, and a humongous library. I even tested them against iTunes. Amazon had non-DRM files and had them cheaper than iTunes which only had them DRM protected.

Almost more important, Yahoo! bought Music Match and just destroyed one of the best pieces of software ever built. I still have MM10 on one XP machine. It is still terrific. On Vista machines, a lot of what MM10 was especially good at has been usurped by WMP11: syncing large numbers of files in one shot, where WMP10 in WinXP sucked; and ID-3 tagging.

But hey, that was MM10 and WMP10. Now, we are at the 11's with WMP and RealPlayer, so who knows how goof MM11 would have been.

Now, what we need is for someone or some organization to wrest that MM10 code out of the cold dead hands of the cadavers at Yahoo! and bring it back to the users who paid for licenses.

[surferstevo]

This is why you shouldn't use any music service but Amazon, they are the only ones that have all DRM free music, no strings attached. Microsoft,Itunes,Rhapsody, they are all trying out new methods to make more money off music, you will get burned! Have you tried to move your Itunes library more than 3 times? I know they have DRM free music, but not much of it, and it costs more. I wish people would speak with there wallets and stop supporting DRM because the company has cool commercials on the TV!

[umbrae]

You are an idiot if you buy DRM music. If music is DRMed, then it should be free.

[streamOG]

"The problem with this, however, is that you lose sound quality."

Oh Greg please!!! You would not know the difference between an MP3 playing on your computer and a song playing back from an Audio CD.

You really should drop the drama and hype from your writing and in doing so your credibility might inch back up.

Yahoo has been telling customers for months to back their music up.

[7ate9]

Yes that is confusing. You do not loose sound quality burning MP3s to CD because the audio content is not being compressed, unless you purposely decide to change the kbps rate.

You WILL HEAR a difference playing MP3s on a good full-range speaker system compared to computer speakers or headphones since the high-end and low-end bandwith has been cut as part of the compression process.

[mgarc1125]

I think he is saying that if you burn a compressed MP3 to an audio CD, then re-rip the audio CD to an MP3 you will lose quality since you are essentially compressing a file that was previously compressed.

[firemedic510]

Amazon - No DRM. Never had it, never will. I have been stung by Yahoo (already ditched em when they made the first announcement.)

Only DRM free for me!

[jachamp]

You know...there are so many complacent people that say "oh I want this" and pay zero attention to anything and then when these companies pull the rug out from under them, the idiot consumer starts whining..."they can't do this. i own this music"

no..you don't own anything. the labels own it and you have rented the media on your player.

stop being stupid and realize what you're getting into before you get into it.

if all these sites were require by law to put a disclaimer in a popup box before a purchase that says, "any music/media paid for on this site can be removed by us at any time at our discretion"

then no one could complain but it's those freaks that listen to hip-hop, pop, and soft music that falls for this stuff because they don't care about the consequences of their actions. they want convenience at all costs...and that's just what they get.

so either stop being stupid or sit there and suffer quietly so those of us who tried to warn you don't have to listen to you whining.

[dangitman]

What does somebody's taste in music have to do with whether they care about the consequences of their actions? What a bizarre statement. Perhaps you can tell me what music superior people listen to? Or perhaps you can tell me what genre of music doesn't have any gullible or irresponsible listeners?

[Lerianis]

Dangitman, I agree totally. The only 'freak' here is jachamp, who is making numerous assumptions about people who listen to pop and soft music, that are NOT anywhere close to the reality.

[Dalkorian]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
I pity not these fools. When you act STUPIDLY, you can't WHINE later about it. Suck it up and learn the lesson finally - DRM is a SHAM to steal your money from you for nothing in return. You *THINK* you have something, but eventually you learn your lesson. Hopefully. Or not, what do I care? Keep throwing your money away for nothing - hey, there's still subscription services that'll take your money away for nothing!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
PSSST: You do realize that CD's (typically - beware Sony BMG) don't have any DRM junk on them, right? That's right - you actually get something for your money, something you can keep. Also, I hear that BitTorrent is free. Pass it on!

[blarggstar]

If you just burn your purchased yahoo music to CD now, it will be stripped of DRM once you rip it back. Yeah, this sucks, but there is a solution.

[JamiLeeD]

I just wish someone would buy Musicmatch Jukebox from them and restore it to its former glory.

[sadchild]

no surprise there. but the good news is that the 10,000+ mp3s i've downloaded from usenet continue to work just fine. $10/month for unlimited downloading. and the used CDs i've bought for $2-$5 each are still sitting in my basement, waiting to be re-ripped as needed.

DRM=BS. want to support the ARTIST..... GO to the show and buy MERCH while there. cut out the middle men who are mostly just out to screw you. as proven again today.

[mattflaschen]

"The problem with this, however, is that you lose sound quality."

Strictly speaking, this is only true if you burn it, then rerip to lossy format again. However, it's true most people do this.

[hackian]

The precedent has now been set for video with DRM. It has been established that the big players have made business decisions to abandon consumers of DRM audio. How long will it be before DRM video is abandoned?

[wikieditor2008]

@ mattflaschen
"Strictly speaking, this is only true if you burn it, then rerip to lossy format again."

Well, if i would try to speak even "strictlier" then I would have to say:
you are not 100% correct.
even if your rerip into a non lossy format like flac then of course you will lose quality compared to a "genuine" CDDA at least.
Since the DRMed WMA file of course does not magicly be inflated again with those soundbytes that got obliterated when that lossy file was created from the mastering source just because you burn that file onto a CD. The disk you burn will jsut contain the same lossy quality you begin with.
That reason alone (even when the DRM issue would be non) that they get less when they buy WMA instead of CDDA or FLAC should repell everybody that has a brain from buying lossy files in the first place!
And to the guy that said you would not hear a difference on your computer between MP3 and CDDa: That might be true if you jsut listen to both sources via those crappy 2 watt computer speakers and not via a lineout from your PC to a serious hi-fi amplifier.

[cpopken]

I don't think people concerned about sound quality would be buying from Yahoo music anyway.So losing quality by burning and ripping shouldn't bother them much.

Can you imagine the backlash if itunes decided to do this? Amazon seems to be the best solution at this time.

[Lerianis]

There is an easy solution to this problem: Yahoo and every other music service that uses DRM should be REQUIRED to provide a tool that strips the DRM from the files that you bought from their website when they go out of business or close shop, and post that tool conspicuously on every download website like Download.com they can think of.

[oneoclock]

Ridiculous! If such a requirement existed, the music industry wouldn't have allowed such sites to sell music in the first place.

[garylea]

The September 30 shut off date for the licensing servers is a sham. In trying to burn all the music I have bought from Yahoo Music I find that the licenses for most of it have disappeared. This is purchased music, not something from a subscription. When I contacted tech support they apparently are sorry that I'm frustrated but they can't help me. I take this to mean that their servers are already shut down. Apparently all those other posters are right. I was an idiot, dumb as a post, etc. Yahoo has my money and I have a bunch of useless titles on my computer taking up space.