AfterDawn: News

Yahoo to shut down DRM servers for Yahoo Music Limited after September

Yahoo Music Unlimited has now officially become limited. In February they decided to partner with Rhapsody and stop selling music through their own premium service. Now they're planning to pull the plug on the DRM servers after the end of September.

That means as of October 1 people who purchased music through Yahoo Music Unlimited will no longer be able be able to listen to it if they upgrade to a new computer, or simply have to re-install Windows.



You may recall that Microsoft made a similar decision regarding the DRM servers for the MSN Music service, but decided to change their minds and maintaing the license servers until 2011 when confronted by their angry customers.

It's almost as though Microsoft and Yahoo are trying to point out just what's wrong with using DRM in the first place. When you no longer have access to the music you purchased with the understanding you'd be able to play forever there's something wrong.

As Corynne McSherry of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) pointed out today, it's ironic that the more money someone gave Yahoo, the more they're being punished.

Written by: Rich Fiscus @ 24 Jul 2008 22:12

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• 8 comments

• logan1957

  Yahoo partnering with Rhapsody is gonna come back and bite them on the ass in time. Have any of you ever signed up to the two week "free" trial from Rhapsody, not be satisfied and then try to leave, but can't find the number to do so. I used to work in a call center when Best Buy was featuring a Rhapsody trial, a customer called and wanted to leave their shoddy service but couldn't find the number to unsubscribe. It took me forty five minutes to find the number on the Rhapsody site buried at least six pages in and near the bottom of a page which had nothing to do with unsubscribing. I'd say this is one of the biggest mistakes that Yahoo has ever made partnering with a company whose integrity is at best questionable. As we all know Rhapsody is owned by Real Media and we all know just how crappy their Real Media player is. It's nothing more than poorly written spyware so for me I'd never give them the time of day let alone any business in regards to my music.

  24.7.2008 22:34 #1

• blueroad

  jesus just DL for free..

  25.7.2008 07:43 #2

• ugc

  My thoughts... (like you really care..lol)
  
  Buy your music, just make sure it is DRM FREE.

  25.7.2008 11:30 #3

• SProdigy

  Originally posted by logan1957: Yahoo partnering with Rhapsody is gonna come back and bite them on the ass in time. Have any of you ever signed up to the two week "free" trial from Rhapsody, not be satisfied and then try to leave, but can't find the number to do so. I used to work in a call center when Best Buy was featuring a Rhapsody trial, a customer called and wanted to leave their shoddy service but couldn't find the number to unsubscribe. It took me forty five minutes to find the number on the Rhapsody site buried at least six pages in and near the bottom of a page which had nothing to do with unsubscribing. I'd say this is one of the biggest mistakes that Yahoo has ever made partnering with a company whose integrity is at best questionable. As we all know Rhapsody is owned by Real Media and we all know just how crappy their Real Media player is. It's nothing more than poorly written spyware so for me I'd never give them the time of day let alone any business in regards to my music.I couldn't agree more. I used Rhapsody long ago when they had WMA files and the software didn't lock up machines. When they switched to v4 software, they changed to a proprietary .RAX file, which could not be crippled at all. No transfering to my Rio player or iPod.
  
  This went on for months, with customer service referring me forums, where other customers tried to help each other (ie. "free" support.) I was then banned from their forums FOREVER by my IP, because I had finally had enough and called their service crap, in so many words, although everything I had mentioned was an actual flaw/bug in the program.
  
  To top it off, I too had to dig up that number, which seems to not exist anywhere in the app or where you think you might find it. It's a damn shame that a program that relies on the web for it's content, help and support, plus charges you electronically, must be canceled OVER THE PHONE.
  
  Ah, hell, I didn't even get into DRM yet, but we all know what I was going to say anyway...

  25.7.2008 14:35 #4

• 5fdpfan

  I've never experienced problems with my Real Player. What is it about it that's so crappy? Only things I have to say about it, are that it's pretty stupid of them to make you subscribe to a service in order to use it's premium features when all of those things can be done with freeware or other software that is cheap that at least you'd only being paying for once, not month after month. The second thing is, I'ts annoying dealing with that "Real Player Download" folder that appears in my vides folder and always re-appears even after I delete it once I use RP to watch another video. Other than that, it plays all the files it's supposed to play so I can't really complain much.

  26.7.2008 09:51 #5

• w33d4all

  its easy to remove DRM from DRM music file's simply use one of the files from this site
  [url=http://www.undrm.info/remove-DRM-protection/][/url]

  13.8.2008 12:26 #6

• varnull

  so how do we crack .RAX files...
  
  anybody care to send me one so I can have a bash at it with my open source converters?
  

  
  
  Free open source software = made by end users who want an application to work. An engineer with a single tool in his toolbox is an idiot, not an engineer

  13.8.2008 12:35 #7

• logan1957

  Varnull;
  You can use SoundTaxi to remove DRM from the songs and to convert .RAX files to MP3. I was just reading up on what could be used to convert them.

  13.8.2008 13:25 #8