Yahoo! to compensate DRM-protected Music Store customers

Hey, both of you Yahoo! Music Store customers, listen up. Just hours after Yahoo! affirmed that it would be powering down its DRM servers, along comes a spokesperson to alleviate any worries that you two will get screwed in all of this. According to Carrie Davis, customers "will be compensated for whatever they paid for the music," and she continued on to state that Yahoo "had not yet decided what exactly it would do, but it would take care of its customers." Some of the possible options include getting cash back for the money spent on tracks or receiving MP3 versions of the jams sans DRM (we'd take the former, thanks). Depressingly, there doesn't seem to be a definitive time table laid out just yet for the restitution process.

[JOSE @ Jul 26th 2008 5:01PM]

Ba humbug!

[Haikibutsu @ Jul 27th 2008 9:34PM]

Engadget, please make a swear filter for that URL.

[collegekid13 @ Jul 26th 2008 5:04PM]

'bout bloody time they did.

[becu55 @ Jul 26th 2008 5:08PM]

Funny how before my comment there were two people who posted.

[GatgetMan @ Jul 26th 2008 5:15PM]

Hilarious in fact!

[Skazer @ Jul 26th 2008 5:10PM]

Yahoo did the right thing. Good move!

[Jack @ Jul 26th 2008 5:11PM]

ENGADGETS BACK from murphs last messed up post!!

[maveric101 @ Jul 26th 2008 5:12PM]

hm. now that previous infineon article has disappeared completely...

ITS A TRAP!!!

[chickenator @ Jul 26th 2008 5:27PM]

it's a mystery...

[collegekid13 @ Jul 26th 2008 6:39PM]

its still there http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/26/infineon-ceo-talks-up-sale-of-qimonda-unit/2#comments

[vvMINOvv @ Jul 26th 2008 5:19PM]

WHHHHY OH WHY

RIP, oh dear "http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/26/infineon-ceo-talks-up-sale-of-qimonda-unit/" , you were a great post of 4 simple points, and for that; everyone loved you. We can only hope you are in a happier place now.

[Nik @ Jul 26th 2008 5:23PM]

Haha, is there a mirror with the comments? Where did it go!??!?!

[Loonie @ Jul 26th 2008 5:18PM]

Awww come one guys, I know this DRM stuff is a drag, but at least music piracy has now been completely eradicated!

[Elora HRanma @ Jul 26th 2008 5:37PM]

Arrr, was it possible to pirate music before DRM? Had I known I wouldn't have bought all these vinyls!

[TavisJohn @ Jul 27th 2008 2:53AM]

Good news!

You can rip vinyl to MP3!
http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/mp3/90a0/

[Wolfticket @ Jul 26th 2008 5:20PM]

I demand our blank infineon article back!
(or at least post the source code :D )

[Mino @ Jul 26th 2008 5:33PM]

They all went down like 3 minutes ago

[Maeztro @ Jul 26th 2008 5:34PM]

Before you rip Yahoo Music for not having any customers remember that when it first came out it was a phenomenal deal and was talked about all over the net. I signed up for a year of Yahoo Unlimited and I think the promotion for the first year was like 60 bucks for the entire year.

It never quite caught on, but it was a pretty solid effort.

[Maeztro @ Jul 26th 2008 5:36PM]

Before you rip Yahoo Music for not having many customers remember that when it first came out it was a phenomenal deal and was talked about all over the net. They had a first year promotion of something like 60 bucks for Yahoo Unlimited (subscription model) for the entire year.

It may have never quite caught on but it was a pretty solid effort.

[broli @ Jul 26th 2008 5:56PM]

Fail.

[digitallysick @ Jul 26th 2008 5:36PM]

They will give you Yahoo! dollars, which, are only good at yahoo.com

[Neebs @ Jul 27th 2008 7:11PM]

Microsoft hasn't purchased them yet have they?

[Maeztro @ Jul 26th 2008 5:37PM]

Before you rip Yahoo Music for not having many customers remember that when it first came out it was a phenomenal deal and was talked about all over the net. They had a first year promotion of something like 60 bucks for Yahoo Unlimited (subscription model) for the entire year.

It may have never quite caught on but it was a pretty solid effort.

[CraigJ @ Jul 26th 2008 5:41PM]

I heard you the first 2 times...

[broli @ Jul 26th 2008 5:57PM]

Double fail.

[chickenator @ Jul 26th 2008 6:24PM]

double the goodness

[Maeztro @ Jul 26th 2008 6:28PM]

LOL! Borked message system rides again!

[SuperSexyErik (^_^) @ Jul 26th 2008 6:43PM]

yes ill agree that before itunes came along, yahoo was big.
but most people in the U.S. own Apple Ipods.. and itunes is the best digital store there is

[Socioguy @ Jul 26th 2008 10:51PM]

@ Erik

Uh, no it isn't. Apparently someone hasn't heard of Amazon. DRM-Free FTW!

[SuperSexyErik (^_^) @ Jul 27th 2008 12:16AM]

@socioguy

Oh? And is amazon outselling iTunes? No... Didn't think so

[fanman @ Jul 27th 2008 10:30AM]

Last time I looked, Aston Martin weren't outselling fiat either.

[HOOPER @ Jul 27th 2008 4:47PM]

Dear SuperSexyErik,

Please stop being such a tool and comparing/relating every single thing to Apple (and how it's inferior to Apple).

[SuperSexyErik (^_^) @ Jul 27th 2008 8:56PM]

lol you troll. I have a right to prove you wrong and I'm not gonna quit so got dig a hole and stay there plz.

[cwm @ Jul 28th 2008 11:53AM]

digital.othermusic.com sells music without DRM, and at the highest bitrate for lossy MP3 (higher than amazon). oh yeah, there is one small hitch: you probably haven't ever heard of 95% of their (relatively small) selection, unless your favorite bands are Six Organs of Admittance and Nurse With Wound.

for UK fans of similar oddness, there's www.boomkat.com which is the only on-line retailer offering files in FLAC format, so far as I know.

[cwm @ Jul 28th 2008 11:58AM]

not surprisingly, I do in fact listen to this sort of thing. which is probably why I've never found a single thing in iTunes supposedly-huge selection I'd want to download.

amazon's OK. but only if the CD is unavailable or very expensive. CDs are still a better buy. lossless, and you can always rip them again if you need to (not that I don't keep backups of my HD...)

[Rob @ Jul 26th 2008 6:03PM]

The interesting thing here is that many companies supporting all this DRM nonsense will find themselves in the same predicament Yahoo is in. Why? Because when people buy all this DRM-wrapped music, they'd expect the stuff to last and not be thrown a kick in the groin by the company they bought it from. So, customers will line up and say "I paid for this music on a portable format, and I shouldn't have to burn it on a disc just because you've decided not to support your format anymore." That day will come and the record companies, once again, will laugh their way to the bank, while the middle man, online stores, will get stuck with the bill. It serves Yahoo well for playing along with MS. Let's hope they've learned their lesson and will stay away from MS as much as possible. Napster's and Rhapsody's turn is coming. The only one who is in the clear and doing the right thing right now is Amazon. And by the way, don't put all your faith in Apple either. They're a bit more honest than MS, but not that much.

It's not MS bashing. It's DRM bashing and the consequences of a practice that has only benefited MS and the RIAA. Everyone else gets the shaft.

[h0mi @ Jul 27th 2008 3:10AM]

Itunes might be the least problematic because you actually own the files, and apple going "poof" doesn't turn those files into nothingness like we see with Yahoo or MSN music.

1 thing Im not sure of tho is this. You can backup your itunes but lets say apple were to disappear. So you have to move your music to another computer for 1 reason or another. No itunes = you cant authorize another PC on your account. Which means it's impossible to restore working itunes on the new machine? If you have a ghost image of your old system, that should work?

[TheGasMan @ Jul 26th 2008 6:11PM]

"MP3 versions of the jams sans DRM"
Isn't that redundant?

Well anyway, at least Yahoo isn't going to completely screw over its customers. Or so they say. On the plus side, technically I think you could download MP3s of the songs you already purchased from Bittorrent since you own a license for them, couldn't you? ...Or do you not really own a license?

[Rob @ Jul 26th 2008 6:18PM]

No you can't. Well, you can if you want to. Is it legal? No. That's the logic I'd love to use too. Imagine the argument "well, I bought the 8-Track version of Peter Frampton Comes Alive back in the day so I should be allowed to own/download any future version released by the record labels. I shouldn't have to pay for it again, now do I?" That would be nice indeed. But, it doesn't apply.

Those who were foolish enough to buy DRM-loaded mp3's have one option, and that's to burn the file onto a cd. Pretty lousy deal considering you paid the same, if not quite close, to owning the better sound quality and DRM-free CD version.

[Sora @ Jul 26th 2008 7:01PM]

Couldn't you just burn it to a CD, then rip it to another player? That's what I do to get rid of the DRM on my iTunes songs so I can transfer them to my school laptop without having to authorize it on iTunes.

[Fruition @ Jul 27th 2008 9:46AM]

Well, the way Bittorrent works, anything you download on Bittorrent isn't 100% legal because even if you were to legitimately own a license for the content you're downloading, you'd be distributing it to people who most likely don't, and if I understand it correctly, that's a big no-no.

[collegekid13 @ Jul 26th 2008 6:40PM]

http://www.engadget.com/2008/07/26/infineon-ceo-talks-up-sale-of-qimonda-unit/2#comments

[Zeth Ethereal @ Jul 26th 2008 6:41PM]

For those of you who will miss the broken article I took a screenshot of it for memories. Enjoy!

http://i36.tinypic.com/2lkp6if.jpg

[nate @ Jul 26th 2008 6:51PM]

ha, completely pointless, and yet....

[Zeth Ethereal @ Jul 26th 2008 6:52PM]

Life is great when its pointless and random XD

[Sora @ Jul 26th 2008 7:04PM]

I'm intrigued by your other tabs, namely "The Giraffe Women". Is it some kind of giraffe fetishist porn site?

[Zeth Ethereal @ Jul 26th 2008 7:13PM]

Its a group of asian women who put brass rings around their necks .... heres the link Enjoy ^_^

http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=32160

[SuperSexyErik (^_^) @ Jul 26th 2008 6:42PM]

"Hey, both of you Yahoo! Music Store customers"

lol even engadget knows that nobidy uses yahoo :)

[projektR @ Jul 26th 2008 6:57PM]

jason dude: is there a reason why you keep spamming engadget with your idiotic youtube video?

http://www.engadget.com/profile/515668/

[Germ @ Jul 26th 2008 11:43PM]

Dang, man. Thanks for the profile link...it was very enlightening.

I vote we kick this guy out.

---Germ