Yahoo! Music Unlimited shuttered -- customers feel the Rhapsody

Yahoo! Music Unlimited (and its customers) is the latest victim of the digital media shakeout. However, unlike the shutdown of Sony's Connect service which left customers stranded with DRM-laden tracks, Yahoo has struck a deal to send its existing subscription customers to the PlaysForSure-friendly Rhapsody music service from RealNetworks. The shift will occur sometime in "the first half" of 2008 and leave Yahoo Music Unlimited's payment plans and music libraries in tact for customers "for a limited time." Eventually, Yahoo's legacy customers will be required to sign up at Rhapsody's relatively higher rates of $12.99 per month (Yahoo charged $8.99 per month or as little as $5.99 per month for a year paid in full). So, do you still think that the subscription model is a good thing? Just wait, the shake-out has only begun.

Update: To be clear, Yahoo Music will continue to offer streaming audio, music videos, web radio and other advertising-supported music offerings while integrating Rhapsody into its online portal. Only the subscription service is being shut down.

[x20mar @ Feb 4th 2008 4:37AM]

Yahoo had a music service?

[Mickey Jones @ Feb 4th 2008 1:10PM]

Yeah, the 5 people involved here must be devastated.

Rhapsody was Microsoft's dumping ground too when they bailed out of Urge.

[Tom in Raleigh @ Mar 7th 2008 11:24PM]

Well, Mickey, actually it had about 400k subscribers. Yahoo music was one of the few good things Yahoo had going for it. When they "transition" me to Rhapsody I absolutely will cancel it--nothing I've ever installed from Real Networks has ever worked properly, their players are resource hogs, and they offshore all their support, including cancellation, which means hours on the phone listening to "ted" in Bangalore read me a script. No problem with offshoring--just cancel my service when I say so. I will record that conversation and post it like the guy did when he tried to cut off AOL.

[cannonfodder @ Feb 4th 2008 4:56AM]

subscription services suck but at least Yahoo are doing something for their customers unlike sony and their love of DRM and, "none transferable licences"!

anyone purchasing titles from PS3 PSN i hope you read your EULA is ALL media purchased from their is NONE transferable even if you sell your PS3 you are breaking the law to pass on your account for those games locked to it!

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/01/sony-kills-drm-store.html

[quote=Cory Doctorow,]Sony kills DRM stores -- your DRM music will only last until your next upgrade
Posted by Cory Doctorow, February 1, 2008 10:52 AM |

Stephen sez, "The Sony 'Connect' DRM-tastic music store is closing shop on March 31, 2008. Another failed experiment in DRM is leaving its paying customers out in the cold with soon-to-be unusable content (unless you violate the DMCA) in the form of audio files DRM locked to Sony's ATRAC media players. Yet another in a seemingly endless stream of examples of how media companies are punishing their paying, legitimate customers for the RIAA's own infuriating technological shortsightedness."

What will happen to my library (content I own)? You will continue to be able to play, manage, and transfer the music in your SonicStage library and on your ATRAC player. For music purchased via CONNECT, this means you may continue to enjoy it as usual in your current PC configuration in accordance with our terms of use.

To ensure continued access to your content, we strongly recommend that customers archive their library to audio CDs and/or make a backup using SonicStage.

Translation: You can continue to "enjoy" "your" music until you get a new PC or a new music player. And really, why would you want a new PC or a new music player ever again? Surely your three-year-old ATRAC player will never be truly obsolete![/quote]

well you gotta love this company, once they got your cash they couldn't give a dam just as all the early adopters of Drm-Ray players are finding out.....

The BPI Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.

The RIAA Soundexchange Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, EMI.

The MPAA Are: SONY, UNIVERSAL, WARNER GROUP, DISNEY, PARAMOUNT, FOX.

[garbuhj @ Feb 4th 2008 4:56AM]

another one bites the dust

[Pavan @ Feb 4th 2008 5:36AM]

I hope your music subscription plan allows you to quote lyrics like that...

[Will @ Feb 4th 2008 5:01AM]

Microsoft wants to pay 44 Billion for a company who can't afford to keep it's music buisness going? what am I missing?

[Charlie Calhoun @ Feb 4th 2008 5:12AM]

Pretty much what I was thinking, except maybe the company is sabotaging itself so Microsoft doesn't want it anymore... What a shame. I'm still waiting for Googlezon...

[ScooterDe @ Feb 4th 2008 5:29AM]

expect more Yahoo services to be dropped or to change their business model. The company is not thriving, hence the takeover, and the new owners will want payback.

[michael @ Feb 4th 2008 5:48AM]

Well first, Yahoo!'s main business isn't music.

2nd, Yahoo! is still a prime company for its user base, connections to other companies, and some relatively good services like Flickr, Y! Mail, Y! Messenger, Y! Answers, and a few other of the good content that lies in Y!.

It's really not worth that much, but anything to speed up the acquisition would be better than waiting for a much longer time.

I really can't wait to see how the best of Y! merges with the best of WinLive/MSN. Maybe some real good will come out of this deal.

[TRAFFICBLOWS @ Feb 4th 2008 7:57AM]

Maybe this is the first step of the merger...

[Darren @ Feb 4th 2008 5:03AM]

A subscription service is no different then subscribing to cable TV or satellite radio, and that's fine. If your service shuts down you switch to another service.

People who want to build a personal music library won't use a subscription service, but certainly there are people for whom a subscription service is appropriate. (I'm not one of them, BTW).

[Barky @ Feb 4th 2008 8:28AM]

I like(ed) Yahoo Music. For $60/year I had access to 95% of the music I was interested in. I don't "own" the tracks but that is OK. Sort of like having a roommate with every CD ever made.

[Neoprimal @ Feb 4th 2008 9:17AM]

The music service in my opinion was pretty good. This is the way I was hoping things would go for music and videos in the future - rent them for a monthly fee for unlimited downloads and then if you love something enough to want to own it, buy it. Yahoo stood out because it was so very cheap. But Yahoo's problem for me personally is that the tracks are wma, which I think most playdforsure drm music services use and just didn't mix well with my personal library. I'm not sure if I'll end up subscribing to Rhapsody - it plays on almost everything, and on my Tivo as well, but 13 a month is kind of steep - at least that WAS the argument, compared to Yahoo and Virgin digital, both of which are now gone.

[m @ Feb 4th 2008 8:58PM]

... except that your roommate is a dick, and won't let you burn a copy of any of them. also, he demands gas money whenever you ask for a ride to the store. i hate that guy.

[Jim @ Feb 4th 2008 7:04AM]

I am a subscriber. Its kind of tacky to find out about this through the news and as of now, there is no email in my inbox letting me know what will happen with my annual subscripion (paid through Jan 2009). They can do what they want, but I'm the kind of customer that will switch to Napster instead of Rhapsody if I think I am getting dorked around.

[david_topping @ Feb 4th 2008 6:49AM]

It’s hard to describe how utterly and completely indifferent I am to the news of another online music seller in trouble...

...except it’s worth remembering that !Yahoo Music has a significant chunk of a really good program called Musicmatch. Musicmatch was bought out by Yahoo who then released an “upgrade”. Even as a software marketer of 25 years I’m not sure how I could get away with calling a piece of software which has fewer features and didn’t really work very well an “upgrade”. Now, it appears, even this will bite the dust and probably so will my “lifetime upgrades”.

I can only hope that some enterprising soul decides that they are now free to go back into the music management software business and brings back a simple, fast, non bloated music ripping, managing and playing package, which doesn’t try and sell me music or manage the phone I don’t have.

[TRAFFICBLOWS @ Feb 4th 2008 8:00AM]

simple, fast, non bloated music ripping, managing and playing package, which doesn’t try and sell me music or manage the phone you don’t have:

http://www.mediamonkey.com

[Scott @ Feb 4th 2008 11:03AM]

I use Media Monkey for some tagging features, but it is a TERRIBLY CONFUSING and unfriendly player IMO. I would not recommend it to someone over Winamp, WMP, or iTunes for a default media player.

[Dagwood @ Feb 4th 2008 7:17AM]

This sucks. The Yahoo Music Unlimited service is the only online service I pay for. My PC is hooked up to my stereo receiver with SPDIF. For 5 bucks a month, I can listen to pretty much any album made on my home stereo; on demand and legal. It is a great service for the price. I cant tell you how many bands I have discovered because of it. They threw in the launchcast premium with the subscription as well. An email from yahoo would have been nice. Thanks for the heads up engadget.

[okayokay @ Feb 4th 2008 8:02AM]

Uhh, maybe a higher return on royalties (move away from subscription radio) would encourage better songs. Maybe we can look forward to songs expressing frustration when the IM service is down for a day or the plasma or a friend copying their ringer....

[okayokay @ Feb 4th 2008 8:08AM]

Uhh, maybe a higher return on royalties (move away from subscription radio) would encourage better songs. Maybe we can look forward to songs expressing frustration when the IM service is down for a day or a friend copys their favorite ringer....

[Mark Nelson @ Feb 4th 2008 8:35AM]

Say what you like about the subscription model, but the truth of the matter is that Yahoo! was basically incompetent when it came to running this service. Their basic notion was that they could pull it off without offering any sort of support, and when users ran into problems, they were treated like dirt. Rhapsody is not without its faults, but they at least have support - when something goes wrong, you can leave an email and get a response. Incredibly, this was not the case with Yahoo!

http://marknelson.us/2006/11/27/yahoo-music/

[Christopher @ Feb 11th 2008 6:05PM]

Who ever had a real problem with Yahoo Music Jukebox or their service? The few times that I had a 'problem' the whole service was down and customer support was quick to inform me of that when I e-mailed them.

[Colin @ Feb 4th 2008 9:01AM]

Well, this should be interesting. In the fall I paid $72 to get two years of this service on a buy-one-year-get-one-free deal. I'll be interested to see in what creative way I'll get the shaft from this deal.

[paul Cyoipick @ Feb 4th 2008 9:18AM]

Great, I just renewed my yearly membership last month, and Rhapsody subscriptions are USA only. Plus, Rhapsody doesn't play on my Archos.

Calling today to see how I get my $$ back.

[Reginald @ Feb 4th 2008 9:25AM]

Hah! Good timing. I just canceled my Yahoo Unlimited subscription last month.

...or maybe they just quit because they couldn't take my loss. I understand.


Amazon MP3 FTW!

[Ken Love @ Feb 4th 2008 9:33AM]

The Sansa Connect I bought 'round Christmas is turning into a non-stop kick in the balls. First, I bought it from CompUSA with the protection plan a week before they announced their closings; now this.

I sure hope they port the wireless download functionality of the Connect to Rhapsody. It's a great player for my kid as I'm not burdened with the rip and transfer process and I can monitor his usage on yahoo.

Sheesh, you think you get a bit of security by buying the big brands.

[bpmcneill @ Feb 4th 2008 3:35PM]

I have the Sansa Connect and absolutely love it. The ability to wirelessly download an unlimited number of songs shocks all of my iPod toting friends when I demonstrate it to them.

That said... its integrated with Yahoo Music, so who knows if it will be ported properly.

[Scott K. @ Feb 5th 2008 9:46AM]

Don't hold your breath on those features, Ken. They just want your money.

When Yahoo assimilated MusicMatch, all of the good advanced tagging features were wiped out, which is the only reason I bought a perpetual upgrade.

[Jim @ Feb 4th 2008 10:17AM]

To whomeit may concern,
when Urge shut down, they sold to Rhapsody as well. Urge was easy to use, fast and very straightforward. Rhapsody is a piece of crap with the worst UI I've ever experienced. With all the folks selling to Rhapsody, I can only think that Rhapsody is owned by the record companies and hopes to basically kill the subscription model by delivering the worst product imaginable but owning the entire category.

Just cancel your subscription now, it will be much less painful.

[Notung @ Feb 4th 2008 12:09PM]

Well, I don't feel any competing service being better than Rhapsody, sorry I have tried/paid for them all. They only thing that keeps Napster for being remotely comparable is that it also does it good with Sonos and works with WMP.

But I agree, many people like iTunes and this is a free world. Everybody has the right to suck---

[Jeremy @ Feb 4th 2008 3:39PM]

I have Rhapsody and I agree. The UI is so terribly ugly, slow, and bug-laden. But, it's the best thing out there.

i really wish iTunes would have a subscription service. I know Steve Jobs thinks he knows what's best for the world, but many people want it. I don't want to pay $1 for some song I'll likely grow tired of in 3 days. And a 30 second preview isn't enough for me to decide anyways. I wish he would just he honest and say "we make more money this way" instead of telling me what I should want when it comes to my music.

[R. Reed @ Feb 4th 2008 10:20AM]

I was a happy musicmatch customer until last summer when I was forced to migrate to yahoo's music service. Then in December, I wanted to try yahoo's music-to-go, but they shut down taking new subscriptions. So I signed up for Rhapsody's $15/mo plan. I'm ecstatic about rhapsody - you can get a $20 plays for sure mp3 player and take subscription music with you, and I got a $70 Rhapsody Sansa e260R player and it works very very well. Love the portable Rhapsody channels!! Its like having satellite radio on TIVO at your fingertips!!
http://www.baribob.net

[Modmaven @ Feb 4th 2008 7:40PM]

Yeah, I did the buy one year, get another free deal a few months back as well. CRAP! I shoulda seen it coming.....

[dave @ Feb 4th 2008 11:03AM]

This sux, Urge just shut down so I switched to yahoo, I hate rax files and so does viodentia and fuwm1.3

[Jamus @ Feb 4th 2008 11:16AM]

Real? Real? Uggggggh. Did they just toss a dart and it land right on the donkey's ass or what?

[Tomahawk @ Feb 4th 2008 11:48AM]

So long Yahoo, Hello Pandora! (screw Rhapsody)

[jeff Pecor @ Feb 4th 2008 1:02PM]

I too, bought a BOGO for 2 years @ $72. This was a great deal, unless in the end the service is shut down and no compensation for people who prepaid for their service. Has anybody heard how (if at all) they will rectify this matter?

I've had Rhapsody before and it's great, just too expensive!

[Onny @ Feb 4th 2008 1:27PM]

Subscription-based plans are a rational way to deal with DRM. If Apple decides to discontinue its DRM, I'm stuck with a bunch of tracks that I "own" but can't play. If Rhapsody discontinues its service, I can just switch to the next subscription service. I don't a big investment tied up in it or PlaysForSure: just a few playlists rather than hundreds of dollars worth of purchased music.

[ZeroCorpse @ Feb 4th 2008 4:05PM]

Why take on iTunes?

I mean, that's kind of like taking on Best Buy at this point. If you run an iTunes alternative, you're going to become CompUSA before long.

And yes, I know Circuit City is still around... Give it time. Their days are numbered.

I would never use Rhapsody. Never. Real has always been crappy, and their policies are draconian. Customer service is almost nonexistent.

Amazon might do OK in the digital music realm, but let us face facts: Apple has always done it better. They have the most widely-owned device, and their protocol is the one people go with, whether or not a few Apple-hating nerds refuse to use iTunes. They've sold BILLIONS of songs.

iTunes isn't going anywhere. The little subscription services will all wink out one by one.

[stupidnoduhdude @ Feb 4th 2008 4:26PM]

Been with Rhapsody for a while, and really, unlimited song listens and downloads (yes, I said downloads) for 12.99/month isn't bad. With Audio Hijack Pro on my Mac I can just make a playlist in Rhapsody, click play, and the whole thing is recorded to my HD.

If you get tired of music easily and want DRM-Free tracks it works well...otherwise, AmazonMP3 is probably a better choice.

[Saul @ Feb 4th 2008 6:00PM]

This sucks... I don't mind not owning the music as 90% of what I heard was on my PC. I wonder if the rhapsody software lets me download stuff when I'm not in a us IP.

[Jeremy @ Feb 4th 2008 7:44PM]

For all y'all who feel $13/month is too steep, recall all the CDs one wouldn't need to purchase when subscribing. As a two-year happy Rhapsody customer, I suspect I've saved hundreds of dollars already. Add the channels (which I consider a free bonus) and it's hard to go wrong.
I know DRM is evil, but I'm more than happy to save the $$.

[mwa423 @ Feb 4th 2008 8:04PM]

Strange, if you go to Yahoo Music they are still accepting subscriptions for their service? Either the article got it wrong or Yahoo is going to actively screw people....

[Steven Strauss @ Apr 16th 2008 5:38PM]

Oh, yeah, I let my Yahoo Music subscription lapse a year ago when I lost my job. In February I celebrated my new employment by buying the two year deal, and during checkout Yahoo informed me that some time this year YM would shut down and transfer the remaining time on my subscription to the Rhapsody service. I just swallowed hard and pressed the button to process my order. I don't know what's coming but I'll hang on for dear life.

[Scott K. @ Feb 5th 2008 9:28AM]

So I have to add another, crapbag, bloated, underpowered overwrought music engine to replace my clean quick MusicMatch?

Yahoo stole MM and replaced it with a watered down version, and now I need to go to Rhapsody? No thanks.

[Sophocles @ Feb 9th 2008 11:37PM]

I quit Rhapsody because of their underhanded dealings with customers. I don't have enough space to review all that occurred with Rhapsody. I think that Yahoo also has better sound so this shifting those of us who have the service to Rhapsody is anything but an upgrade.

[joshua @ Apr 14th 2008 10:28PM]

Unbelievable. Real Networks: You're GUI is horrid, your players have always hogged resources, and you are old enough to know better! Here's a suggestion, Real : download a legacy version of MusicMatch and copy EVERYTHING they did (maybe give them a call for tips on coding) - then add your massive library and I will pay you 12.99 a month for subscription.