Yahoo! offers up coupons and refunds to DRM server-shutdown victims

If you woke up this morning worried about what Yahoo! is planning to do for its Music Store customers who are about to be left in the lurch with its DRM server shut-down, have no fear. Yahoo! has announced that it will offer customers coupons or refunds for those songs you bought. Basically, you'll get a coupon that you can use at RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody download service. Their songs, of course, are DRM-free. For those of you who have "serious problems with this arrangement" (their words, not ours), refunds will be available. The servers go down on September 30, so start combing your collections, kids.

[Thanks, JC]

[Bobjim @ Jul 31st 2008 8:56AM]

Here's hoping this'll be another nail in the coffin for DRM schemes.

Still, nice of Yahoo! to step up on this one, I suppose.

[GoVeganBeStonger @ Jul 31st 2008 9:27AM]

OK Microsoft, your move... watcha gonna do in 2011?

[Bleck @ Jul 31st 2008 9:50AM]

I am very surprised that Yahoo even bothered to do this. Kudos to you, Yahoo.

[ipubs bastard child @ Jul 31st 2008 9:50AM]

*tumbleweed*

[ipubs bastard child @ Jul 31st 2008 9:53AM]

At least now yahoo will have some customers. lets face it. the only reason they're doing this is because they have too much competition from DRM sites. That said, how many people had even heard of yahoo music..

[Rob @ Jul 31st 2008 10:02AM]

I'd take the $$ refund. I haven't heard very good things about Rhapsody. Plus, they use Real Audio, I think, which I can't stand.

[Steve @ Jul 31st 2008 11:01AM]

It doesn't sound as though they're giving coupons for the Rhapsody service. Rhapsody has an MP3 store... I imagine that they're just providing coupons so that you can buy your songs again through Rhapsody.

No more of a long term commitment, I imagine, than using any other MP3 storefront.

And, yeah... the files are MP3. I don't think Rhapsody's used Real Audio for a few years now.

[lauralemay @ Jul 31st 2008 12:03PM]

Rhapsody uses the same DRMed WMA files Yahoo did (with a different license server). When you buy the files they are unDRMed 256kbps 44.1khz MP3. No RealAudio involved.

The Rhapsody client is IMHO easier to use than YMJ, and its less crashy. Rhapsody has more music than Yahoo does. Its recommendations engine also seems to be better.

I'm a former Yahoo music customer -- I only used it for streaming, I never bought any music, and it was cheap -- and the changeover has been a good deal for me. I have no complaints at all.

[Kelmon @ Jul 31st 2008 10:32AM]

Well done Yahoo! This is precisely the move that Microsoft should have taken with their own music store rather than simply extending the authentication server's life, which is just setting themselves up for another hoo-ha in a few years time.

[phanbouy @ Jul 31st 2008 12:07PM]

"hoo-ha"? is that known as what happens when you cast Al Pacino?

[Adam K @ Jul 31st 2008 12:13PM]

Here's a tip to tell DRM'd and DRM-free music apart. Fire up Windows Media Player and type "Protected:yes" (minus the quotes) in the search box. If you have Vista, you can type the same thing in Explorer's search box where your files are.

[suvvy @ Jul 31st 2008 12:28PM]

yes, nice job yahoo

[suvvy @ Jul 31st 2008 12:30PM]

yes, nice job yahoo

[El Taco @ Aug 1st 2008 1:56AM]

no, double post suvvy

[UnixSystemsEngineer @ Jul 31st 2008 12:53PM]

How's Amazon's store going? I know after their store came out, Apple started offering a few DRM-free tracks from EMI, but I'm not sure if Apple ever added a much larger DRM-free library, nor if Amazon has been able to expand their (already larger) DRM-free library.

Hopefully the record companies will be pushed into realizing we'll pay for music, not restrictions.

[Ed @ Aug 1st 2008 12:34AM]

GTMac, this isn't about Yahoo. All the commentary I've seen on this topic has been about DRM being such a nuisance. Yahoo is just one of many companies who advocated it.

[Phoenix987 @ Aug 1st 2008 1:54AM]

Hey, a big corporation that can admit that they effed up.

Good job Yahoo!.

[Al Bear @ Aug 7th 2008 6:39PM]

I bet the folks with the serious problems with this arrangement were litigious whiny people that like suing companies for trivial reasons.

[GTMac @ Jul 31st 2008 11:55AM]

It is not trivial or whiny to object to a company reclaiming the product you purchased.

Yahoo Music users purchased a license to listen to specific music in a specific format. Yahoo announced that they were disallowing use of those licenses without recompense.

They are now offering something of different value subjective to whether your opinion of the file format provided by Rhapsody relative to the lack of DRM is more or less valuable than what was purchased from Yahoo and whether all of the purchased songs are available on the Rhapsody..

The refund is the appropriate action for anyone who believes that the value of this option is lesser than the value they had with Yahoo.

It's got nothing to do with litigiousness although in our current system, legal action is often the only recourse that a consumer has against absurd corporate actions.

[DTX @ Jul 31st 2008 3:29PM]

Al Bear: You sir are an idiot.

GTMac: Thank you for saving me the trouble of explaining something as simple as a "refund policy" to Bearshite.