Yahoo Music Shutting Down, Users Going to Real

Tech.Luver sends in word of Yahoo's decision to exit the subscription music business. Yahoo's current subscribers — the company doesn't disclose how many it has — will be switched over to Real's Rhapsody service, and Yahoo will promote Real on its site. Yahoo had priced its subscription service significantly below Real's: $5.99 a month (if users pay a year in advance), vs. Rhapsody memberships at $12.99 a month and up. The Mercury News wonders how the Yahoo-Real deal would fare if Microsoft takes over — not well, the betting goes.

Comments

RealPlayer

[misleb]

Does that mean users would be forced to use the abomination that is RealPlayer? All I can say is "Haha!"

Re:RealPlayer

[numbsafari]

I refuse to use any site that requires RealPlayer... Hence I don't use Amazon's song sampling...

I hate RealPlayer.

It would actually be a great thing for MS to take over Yahoo if only to help prevent the further spread of the virus that is RealPlayer.

Re:RealPlayer

[globaljustin]

Sometimes I wonder if anyone uses realplayer anymore. I haven't given it a second thought since around '97 when I briefly used it before a buddy in the dorm showed me winamp (which I still use). The pop ups, adware, spyware, and invasiveness took such effort to use.

The true number of people who use it must be miniscule. Why would anyone ever use it?

Re:RealPlayer

[Billly Gates]

Real player no longer sucks and its the only player on Linux that has correct color calibration and brightness on my laptops.

IT no longer has spyware and adware but the reputation quite damned it. Its quite slim now and fast since the company went in a different direction a few years ago. ... no I dont use it anymore on Windows and prefer Itunes. Raphsody requires real player so some people still use it. My wife has it on her computer but she rarely uses it anymore.

Re:RealPlayer

[mrxak]

As much as I agree with you about RealPlayer being utterly evil, I still prefer the unstable tripod of Google-Microsoft-Yahoo to the cold war deadlock Google-Microsoft.

Re:RealPlayer

[kcornia]

Some of those of us who are willing to give people/things a second chance have been pleasantly surprised with current incarnations of RealPlayer. It is non-adware, non-spyware, light on the CPU, and Rhapsody is AWESOME.

I've bought five or six albums in the past few months, several from artists I'd never have listened to (Daft Punk, Modest Mouse, Big Audio Dynamite to name a few) if not for Rhapsody including them in custom channels that I built. Granted I'm buying the CDs because Infiniti SUCKS and can't play home grown CDs in their player without it breaking and they don't have an input jack, but the point is I'm getting exposed to a bunch of new music for the first time in years thanks to Rhapsody.

I actually feel bad for them for having to pay such a high price for their early bad decisions. I mean, I shit-canned them back in the late 90's when they pulled those stunts, but they've matured a lot, and are one of the most complete players out there (although .mov files have quit working on them recently).

I encourage those of you who still have bad memories of Real to read up on the changes and perhaps give them another shot. Rhapsody really is kick ass. I'm sitting here listening to my Sansa player that has 4GB of music that I don't own and loving every minute of it.

I even take it out when I run now, even though I still have to cart the iPod Nano for the running shoes/chip combo.

Re:RealPlayer

[TubeSteak]

http://www.google.com/search?q=real+alternative

I have it installed for when I run across the stray RealAudio or RealVideo file... but I can't recall the last time I did so on purpose.

I have checked out RealMedia Variable Bitrate and I was very surprised how good the quality was compared to the shiatty RealVideo from days past.

Re:RealPlayer

[The Orange Mage]

I would have loved to read your post, but I waited five minutes for it to buffer and I got bored...

Re:RealPlayer

[kingcool1432]

IT no longer has spyware and adware but the reputation quite damned it. Er, not! http://www.stopbadware.org/reports/reportdisplay?reportname=realplayer01282008

Re:RealPlayer

[Captain Splendid]

Are there any (major) sites still using Real as their video delivery of choice? They were on the ropes even before Flash video became all the rage, so I can only assume they have a couple of juicy patents that keep from being buried outright.

Re:RealPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of those of us who are willing to give people/things a second^wfifteenth chance ...

FTFY

---

FYI my captcha is "corrupts"

Re:RealPlayer

[kitsunewarlock]

Hey, I love real med...buffering...buffering...buffering...ia player!

Re:RealPlayer

[Seor Jojoba]

I love Rhapsody. It has its problems, like forcing you to too frequently upgrade the software, but the basic subscription idea is great, and Rhapsody has a very good selection. You can pretty much just put in any artist, obscure or famous, and 19 times out of 20, their music pops up ready to listen to.

The reason that the pay subscription model is not insanely popular is probably because it is competing against the "free subscription" model, where you get all the same music, but for free. Who is offering that? Millions of torrent clients, spread across the internet. For myself, I guess I'll just be a chump and pay twelve bucks a month for all the music I could ever want and then some.

Re:RealPlayer

[owlnation]

This may be true. However, it's far too late. Real were far, far too evil to ever be fully redeemed. Microsoft look like the Pirate Bay compared to Real at the height of their Shadow.

I am surprised about this move in some ways. Mainly because I'd forgotten about Real. I assumed they went out of business, as I've not seen any reference to them for at least two years. Certainly, I'd like to think they went out of business. I, for one, will never use their player again. Once bitten...

I'd trust Real as far as I would the RIAA starting up their own bittorrent site. There's a dark evil lurking in there somewhere still.

Re:RealPlayer

[webmaster404]

The reason that the pay subscription model is not insanely popular is probably because it is competing against the "free subscription" model, where you get all the same music, but for free.

Not to mention its DRMed and may not work on your devices. When someone offers a subscription model DRM free service that works on Windows/Linux/Mac in whatever encoding you want FLAC/MP3/OGG I will sign up until then its again the "pirates" offer a better product on more then just price and if this continues I don't see how digital music will survive.

Re:RealPlayer

[Lumpy]

Pay subscriptions suck because when you quit paying all your music explodes.

I prefer the Amazon.com mp3 model.. no drm 256Kbps VBR mp3's. I have purchased at least 30 albums from them and a crapload of singles as well. It's great they work on my car stereo, audiotron, Lansonic DAS950, basically everything. and they cant take my music from me when they want to.

Re:RealPlayer

[toadlife]

'97 when I briefly used it before a buddy in the dorm showed me winamp I call BS on your post. I was an early user of WinAMP, as I was one of the several thousand or so people on the planet who new what an mp3 even was in 1997.

In 1997, WinAMP was a barely functional audio player that only played Mp2, MP3 and (I think?) uncompressed PCM audio files, whereas Real Player pretty much only played real media files, and maybe uncompressed PCM (wav/aif) files. Real Player most certainly didn't play MP3 files in 1997.

AFAIK, "Winplay", a really crappy shareware app from Fraunhofer and WinAMP were the only mp3 players for Windows that existed at the time. That you replaced RealPlayer with WinAMP in 1997 seems highly unlikely, as they most likely only shared the ability to play PCM audio.

Re:RealPlayer

[Symbha]

Not true...
Rhapsody requires the Rhapsody client, or the Rhapsody web plugin... but does not use Real Player.

I'm sure it uses the same tech...
However, I'm a Rhapsody subscriber, but I too refuse to install the Real Player.

Re:RealPlayer

[kcornia]

This argument always fascinates me. The same is true of your cable TV, but I don't see constant bitching about the cable pay model. The music goes away if you stop paying because you're paying for a SERVICE, not for the music. If you want to pay for the music, then Amazon/iTunes is all there for you. But to buy just what I have in my sansa right now you'd be paying about 5-10 years worth of rhapsody monthly fees. Do you think you'll still want all that music that far in the future? I know I don't listen to many of my old CDs, so Rhapsody is great value for me.

And as far as the comment above this, you're asking the company to let you download whatever you want, whenever you want, as much as you want, in any bitrate/codec you want, on the HONOR system, the promise that you won't download it and then stop paying and share it with your friends?

DRM for music that you guy is lame, I agree. But DRM for music that you buy as a service makes total sense and I have no problem with it. Sure it would be nice if they could all agree so I didn't have to have both a Nano and a Sansa player. But Sansa players are 40 bucks and its plug and play from there so I'm not losing sleep over it.

Re:RealPlayer

[WaXHeLL]

Except for the fact that when I did try to use Rhapsody six months ago, the software could never get past updating my Windows Media DRM.

Their tech support was of no help, and when I tried to cancel the free trial, they offered me an additional free month. I don't get the point of that considering that their software didn't work in the first place.

Yahoo Music Unlimited and Napster did not have issues with updating DRM.

Napster's interface is pretty horrid and some of the songs are written with invalid tags (i think this is an issue with UTF-8 tags being written incorrectly) and would crash my Archos AV500 portable media player. I had to re-write the tags on a significant number of files in order for them to function properly.

Yahoo Music Unlimited! had a pretty streamlined interface that made searching for music / discovering new music relatively easy. In addition, the suggestions weren't pure garbage either (because it actually had a rating system that would adapt with your tastes). No issues with tags.

Re:RealPlayer

[sremick]

Agreed. RealPlayer works just great on my FreeBSD desktop. I don't mind it at all.

I'm happy they've cleaned up their player and are giving attention to people beyond Windows and Mac. I'd miss RealPlayer if it were to vanish, because goodness knows there'll never be a "Windows Media Player" for FreeBSD or Linux. Heh.

That said... RealPlayer is hardly my sole or even primary media player. ;)

Re:RealPlayer

[Symbha]

I totally agree... I love the Rhapsody service, I get to hear tons of new music because of it. The really big boys ain't on there, but I don't care about that shiz anyway... I don't need Metallica or Madonna.

I do have my gripes though... like songs that were once available for stream, later being removed, or limited to 30s clips... (the minority, but it still happens to me alot.)

As for the official RealPlayer (which rhapsody is not,) I do believe it still sucks...
http://www.stopbadware.org/reports/reportdisplay?reportname=realplayer01282008 [stopbadware.org]

Re:RealPlayer

[kcornia]

I saw that, and although the blog that was linked on Digg badly mis characterized the issues, those are issues. But the more important note to me is that practically as soon as it was published Real said they would address both. That to me is a good example of the new model they employ, as opposed to the old model of deny and/or ignore.

And as far as the songs being removed, I doubt that's Real, it's more likely a result of a dispute between the artist and the label. Otherwise you'd see entire label's catalogs dropping.

Re:RealPlayer

[El_Oscuro]

I used to have the Rhaposdy service, but wound up canceling it after buying Iron Maiden "A Matter of Life and Death", but couldn't download it to my iPod because of compatibility/DRM issues. Enough DRM crap. I now buy all my music from Amazon.

Re:RealPlayer

[strabes]

Your comparison to cable TV is accurate except that you can't watch everything you see on TV multiple times unless you use a tivo system. So if you think about it cable TV is even worse. Regardless, this is the major reason why I don't use a subscription service.

Regarding your second paragraph, eMusic does just that. It's a subscription-based, DRM-free music service. You only get 192kbps mp3s but they are DRM free, meaning if you cancel your subscription you get to keep all your music. I prefer the old-fashioned method of actually buying the physical CD. Half the fun of it is opening the CD and looking through the booklet anyway.

Re:RealPlayer

[EtherAlchemist]

Rhapsody doesn't use the RealPlayer. It also works on the Mac and Linux.

Re:RealPlayer

[hairyfeet]

You want a great free music player that has wicked features try Musikcube. The dynamic playlists and built in SQL backend ROCKS! I used to not touch anything but winamp, and then stumbled onto this thanks to shell extension city. The SQL backend makes it wicked fast for updating tags and files and if you prefer a winamp interface they have a plugin that'll give it to you. It is also licensed under BSD and they welcome input from the community. A really nice player from a really nice bunch of guys. It is for 2000 and XP,but the source files are on sourceforge and the developers designed it for easy porting to other systems.

Re:RealPlayer

[szyzyg]

Well it turns out that if you use yahoo's player then you've got an active-X control that's being actively exploited by drive by downloaders
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/05/yahoo_jukebox_vuln/

So, right now realplayer is a preferable alternative.

Re:RealPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazon MP3 site uses flash. Or do you mean CD samplers?

Re:RealPlayer

[linzeal]

I use it to listen to NPR and it works fine for me on Linux and Vista. 2 versions ago sucked though.

Re:RealPlayer

[Skynyrd]

I actually feel bad for them for having to pay such a high price for their early bad decisions. I mean, I shit-canned them back in the late 90's when they pulled those stunts, but they've matured a lot, and are one of the most complete players out there (although .mov files have quit working on them recently).

I'm glad they are paying the price, if for no other reason to serve as an example.

They screwed the pooch - over and over again. They justifiably lost marketshare and honor and I sincerely hope that they are brought up as an example when companies are deciding to do something anti-consumer.

Perhaps they should have just changed their name and started over.

Re:RealPlayer

[globaljustin]

i forgot this was slashdot and people have egos about when they adopted software...sorry...don't get your panties in a twist

wow...you're calling BS on 10+ year old memories...details are hazy...however, in '97 my campus was one of the first to have campus wide ethernet in every dorm room with good computers provided, so I wouldn't be surprised if I was a fairly early adopter of winamp, i may have heard about it through one of the computer science majors or something...

so, the /. version of my mp3 player history is as follows, for those who really give a shit:

first was Sonique in 1997 to play mp3's, then i remember downloading realplayer and not liking it (don't remember if it was video or audio that I originally downloaded it for, but it sucked for both and had invasive features and adware), THEN in 1998 or '99 I switched to winamp (on the advice of my friend brian) and have been happy with that ever since. Winamp remote is fscking awesome...it streams through my xbox360 perfectly.

Re:RealPlayer

[Skynyrd]

This argument always fascinates me. The same is true of your cable TV, but I don't see constant bitching about the cable pay model. The music goes away if you stop paying because you're paying for a SERVICE, not for the music. If you want to pay for the music, then Amazon/iTunes is all there for you. But to buy just what I have in my sansa right now you'd be paying about 5-10 years worth of rhapsody monthly fees. Do you think you'll still want all that music that far in the future? I know I don't listen to many of my old CDs, so Rhapsody is great value for me.

Yeah, but that argument doesn't hold water at all. Video is generally watched once or twice (with some exceptions) where music is listened to repeatedly. I want to rent video (because it's so much cheaper per viewing) and buy music (because I keep it and listen to it over and over, for years).

I can play MP3s in my living room (HTPC), bedroom (PC), truck (MP3 player/CD player), car (iPod + tape deck), motorcycle (cell phone + earbud) at work (thumb drive in my PC + speakers or iPod + speakers/earbuds) and on and on... I just don't have that flexibility with rental music. I'm also not interested in the "band of the week". I tend to listen to music for years, so renting doesn't do it for me. I guess if I was 15 again and listened to whatever the radio told me to, I'd rent.

My music collection is about 1,000 albums, and I've been buying CDs for 20 years (records for a few years before that).

If renting works for you, that's great. But the music/video comparison doesn't really work.

Re:RealPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh really?
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=206101211

Re:RealPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

There were more than several thousand in 1997. I had several GB worth in about mid late 1997 and there was already active trading. Most swapping was done through Windows file and print sharing (or smbclient for the Samba crowd) on cable modems and campus computers. In my area with my cable modem, you could see other peoples computers on your subnet using network neighborhood. Windows had no firewall, almost zero logging and the default network setup shared out your c$ with no password if I remember correctly. A nbnlookup combined with a port scanner (may have even been nmap back then) would gather all of the computer names on a subnet or your choice and you could use smbclient and browse as you desired. Even if people were not knowingly "sharing" files, you could still find stuff ;)

Re:RealPlayer

[Symbha]

That's good to hear... like I said, I'm a fan.

I agree that the song issue is the result of disputes, it's just one of the things that bugs me. I understand it, jut don't like it. As usual, some artists are still holding out... but it bugs me when I see them do it to only a couple songs... it's like they are admit the other stuff isn't worth anything to begin with.

Re:RealPlayer

[Safety Cap]

Are there any (major) sites still using Real as their video delivery of choice?

Unfortunately, yes: cartalk.

Re:RealPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

BBC use Real Player e.g. http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/help/faq/download_and_install_realplayer.shtml, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/video_and_audio/default.stm

Re:RealPlayer

[TheLink]

I believe BBC does use Real player.

Re:RealPlayer

[Mike89]

http://digg.com/software/RealPlayer_Gets_Slapped_with_Badware_Label

Re:RealPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

Infiniti SUCKS I assume you are talking about this cars and this might be largely off-topic, but what year is it? I would imagine what is essentially an expensive Nissan should work fine. Of course, I have an '07 Altima with both an aux input and MP3-CD support. (Hell, I think the base Altima has that.)

Re:RealPlayer

[BForrester]

You'll see it next time you log in. The post has been linked to your taskbar, start menu, quicklaunch, desktop icon, will start with Windows, will integrate with your browser, and has already claimed default association with all known filetypes.

Re:RealPlayer

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Yeah, but that argument doesn't hold water at all. Video is generally watched once or twice (with some exceptions) where music is listened to repeatedly. I want to rent video (because it's so much cheaper per viewing) and buy music (because I keep it and listen to it over and over, for years).

No that idea doesn't appeal to you. Just because you are not the type of person to have a subscription service, does not mean the idea is far fetched. All it means is that you are different.

I can play MP3s in my living room (HTPC), bedroom (PC), truck (MP3 player/CD player), car (iPod + tape deck), motorcycle (cell phone + earbud) at work (thumb drive in my PC + speakers or iPod + speakers/earbuds) and on and on... I just don't have that flexibility with rental music. I'm also not interested in the "band of the week". I tend to listen to music for years, so renting doesn't do it for me. I guess if I was 15 again and listened to whatever the radio told me to, I'd rent.

So what? I can play subscription WMA in my living room (PC), daughter's room (PC), my car (Creative Zen), my wife's car (Sansa View), and my daughter has her own player (Creative Nano) all using ONE subscription account. So what's the big deal?

I also love how you equate the subscription service user to a mindless 15 year old. Just because you were a mindless 15 year old, doesn't necessarily we were all mindless when we were 15 years old. ;)

My music collection is about 1,000 albums, and I've been buying CDs for 20 years (records for a few years before that).

Why should I care about the size of your music collection? What does that prove? I own music too. I just supplement my music with subscription music.

If renting works for you, that's great. But the music/video comparison doesn't really work.

You haven't proved that the music/video comparison is a bad one. In fact, the only thing that you have stated is:

1. You prefer to buy music because you seem to like variety in movies but tend to listen repeatedly to the same song.

2. You listen to the same songs over-and-over again, while in your living room, bedroom, truck, car, motorcycle, and at work.

3. You eventually get tired of listening the same songs, and so you buy new albums and now you have 1000 albums laying around.

4. You had this habit for 20 years, and you do not like change.

5. Because you had this habit for 20 years, you think that this is the best way and you still don't see what all the fuss is about...

Did I miss anything?

Re:RealPlayer

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Does that mean users would be forced to use the abomination that is RealPlayer? All I can say is "Haha!" No, they use an app called 'Rhapsody'. It really isn't bad, either.

Re:RealPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

Use RealAlt & QuickTime Alt. They're Media Player Classic with the appropriate plugins. I use them along with VLC to play everything. I push everyone off the bloated RealPlayer and Quicktime players when I can.

Re:RealPlayer

[wastedbrains]

The REALLY sucks, and is a REAL shame for the users. The REAL issue is that REAL player is worse than most spyware. In fact I have uninstalled REAL player at least twice as often as I have knowingly installed it. I am REAL sorry for the Yahoo users and would be asking for my money back. Real should go out of business, they have been crappy, spammy software for as long as I can remember. My attempt at REAL humor, was REALLY pretty poor, I apologize.

Re:RealPlayer

[Anonymous Coward]

Man I really love thi.... buffering...

On second thought, i'll stick with my mp3s.

Re:RealPlayer

[toadlife]

Sorry. Upon further reflection I was bored at work and grumpy and being a pedant.

Re:RealPlayer

[toadlife]

I used to trade on #mpeg3 on efnet, and yes I do remember being able to do scans on my local isp's network and find all kinds of interesting things on open shares.

Your claim to have had several GB on mp3s is impressive. The hard drive on my computer at the time had only 1GB capacity, and my smokin' pentium 100 encoded at a 0.5x rate.

Re:RealPlayer

[default luser]

Not to mention its DRMed and may not work on your devices.

Even worse, you can end up like my mom, who thought she was happy with Yahoo Music...until she took a trip to Europe. She didn't sync the player in the week leading up to the trip, and during the long trip, her licenses ran out and she had no music. I told her that this was caused by DRM, and the only sure way to avoid it wasto buy CDs and rip them herself (this was before Amazon mp3). She dropped her Yahoo subscription after that.

I'm sure DRM has bitten more people than just my mom. Any service that requires a license authentication AT THE PC but is also intended to be portable is just a bad idea.

Re:RealPlayer

[Skynyrd]

Did I miss anything?

Yes.
You seem to be an angry troll.

I pointed out why it didn't work for me... oh fuck it. You seem to be too stupid to bother to reply to.

Re:RealPlayer

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Yes. You seem to be an angry troll.

Ha ha. I'm just responding to your comment. I'm neither angry nor a troll.

I pointed out why it didn't work for me...

You did more than that. You chimed in with your opinion about subscription music. Remember?

Yeah, but that argument doesn't hold water at all. Video is generally watched once or twice (with some exceptions) where music is listened to repeatedly.

And then you insulted the original poster (emphasis mine):

I just don't have that flexibility with rental music. I'm also not interested in the "band of the week". I tend to listen to music for years, so renting doesn't do it for me. I guess if I was 15 again and listened to whatever the radio told me to, I'd rent.

Is it coming back to you?

oh fuck it. You seem to be too stupid to bother to reply to.

So now that you have exhausted your mental facilities, you now resort to name calling... nice!

Re:RealPlayer

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Yeah, but that argument doesn't hold water at all. Video is generally watched once or twice (with some exceptions) where music is listened to repeatedly. I want to rent video (because it's so much cheaper per viewing) and buy music (because I keep it and listen to it over and over, for years).

Fair point, but I do think you're underestimating how much 'consumable' music is out there. I also think you're overlooking the idea that you can get a lot more audio time than video time during an average day, at least for those of us working in an office environment. But I think if this discussion were to taken much further it'd involve generalizing about people's tastes, and that could turn into a cyclic debate.

That said, agree with you, the video debate breaks down when it's over-analyzed. However, that's really not the point of the argument. It's not intended as a true-analog to cable TV. Instead, it's just a way of pointing out the problem with a particular short-sighted argument. Subscription music has gotten a bad rep on Slashdot, but mainly for academic reasons. Not a lot of people that are poo-pooing it have actually tried it. It has been rationalized away to the point of nobody wanting to explore it. And, to be honest, I understand this. Monthly fees are not something to be taken lightly.

That said, though, I read your post, and I think there are some reasons that subscription music might be interesting to you. I'll share this with you, not to sell you on it, but because I don't think you know about these perks of the service: (note: If I'm wrong about that, I apologize. At least somebody else might find it interesting.)

- Depending on your service, you're not necessarily tethered to your PC. A year or so ago I bought a 4-gig Sansa player for ~$120. (I imagine by now you can get 8 giggers or possibly even more for the same price.) Whatever songs you want from their collection can be downloaded to it. Once a month you have to sync it up to referesh it. I think you can even set it up to download songs you might like. That's not to everybody's liking, but you strike me as somebody that might find that interesting, especially during the drive to work or something.

- You can listen to Rhapsody from any internet connected Windows PC. (Mac support may be available, but I don't know first hand.) You can install the Rhapsody client or you can use Internet Explorer to reach it. The Rhapsody installer will reserve a gig of space for caching, and that's it. It downloads music sort of like how YouTube downloads videos. It drops the data into a bucket and pulls it out as needed, fills up the cache, clears it for older stuff, etc. I'm mentioning this for two reasons: 1.) Rhapsody is NOT active streaming. This is often preferred by internet saavy people. Seeking is no problem. 2.) You don't need lots of space. I'll talk about this more in a later point, but one of the things that drove me towards Rhapsody was a lost hard drive that had lots of MP3s on it. I personally use Rhapsody on my home machine, my work machine, and on my laptop. Once in a while I use a different workstation and I can just fire it up via IE. I don't have to 'sync' any files across these machines. Install, log-in, and go. I'm mentioning this to you because you've got a collection of a thousand CDs, right? I'd say a good 90 - 95% of those CDs is available on Rhapsody. If it's a hassle for you to maintain an MP3 collection that you want to listen to at work, you'd buy yourself some convenience here. (The dead hard drive caused me to look at Rhapsody, this particular perk caused me to keep it.)

- I used the term consumable music earlier. I wonder... you have lots of CDs you enjoy. How did you arrive at buying them? Did you buy them and learn to enjoy them, thus you have a broad music taste? Or did you make strenuous purchasing decisions based on ... well... lots of effort per album? In the former case, you'd have something like four mil

Re:RealPlayer

[globaljustin]

it happens my friend

  man, it was awesome to be on the cutting edge of the internet back in the late 90's...so many new things were comming out...I remember when I was introduced to mp3 files, I just loved it...I could make my own mix CDs!...then early napster, any song I could want for free!...Even to this day it seems many people (RIAA) still do not understand just how revolutionary the mp3 file format (and the bandwidth to transfer them) really is

from your other post, i have a feeling you can relate

Re:RealPlayer

[toadlife]

Even to this day it seems many people (RIAA) still do not understand just how revolutionary the mp3 file format (and the bandwidth to transfer them) really is Back in '97 there were people inside of the music industry who 'got it' but the music industry as a whole squashed their voices. I was (still am) a huge fan of Nirvana, and that year after getting a hold of a ton of Nirvana bootlegs, started a website called "GIC". The site had all of the unreleased studio songs by Nirvana and some live stuff all in mp3 and real audio format. The bitrate of the songs I was about 96Kbps. By today's standards 96kbps sucks, but back then most people we on dialup and HD space was still precious.

The site became very popular and tons of other copycat Nirvana (and other band) mp3 sites sprung up. After several months, Geffen records sent my ISP a take down notice, and after that started sending take down notices to all of the other copycat sites.

Understanding copyright law, I didn't resist and just took the site down. In talking via email with a Geffen representative, a guy named Drew said something to the effect of 'Imagine having ever Nirvana concert available online in mp3 format and being able to pay to download them'. Obviously rogue people like "Drew" were put in their place.

It's been 11 years since then, and I'm still waiting to be able to purchase all those Nirvana shows.

Re:RealPlayer

[Skynyrd]

Fair point, but I do think you're underestimating how much 'consumable' music is out there. I also think you're overlooking the idea that you can get a lot more audio time than video time during an average day, at least for those of us working in an office environment. But I think if this discussion were to taken much further it'd involve generalizing about people's tastes, and that could turn into a cyclic debate.

Ohh look, an intelligent reply. :)

I agree on how much consumable music there is. That isn't how I listen to, or buy music, so that part of the argument doesn't do much for me. Your point about audio time vs video time is extremely valid. That's why I watch a video once (rental) and listen to music over and over (so I buy it). I own a few videos, and they tend to be classics that are difficult to find as rentals, or things I'd be interested in watching more than a few times.

Subscription music has gotten a bad rep on Slashdot, but mainly for academic reasons. Not a lot of people that are poo-pooing it have actually tried it. It has been rationalized away to the point of nobody wanting to explore it. And, to be honest, I understand this. Monthly fees are not something to be taken lightly.

Exactly. And I tend to buy music I like (not the top 10 that I'll be tired of in a month), so an "investment" in a CD makes sense. To me.

- Depending on your service, you're not necessarily tethered to your PC. A year or so ago I bought a 4-gig Sansa player for ~$120. (I imagine by now you can get 8 giggers or possibly even more for the same price.) Whatever songs you want from their collection can be downloaded to it. Once a month you have to sync it up to referesh it. I think you can even set it up to download songs you might like. That's not to everybody's liking, but you strike me as somebody that might find that interesting, especially during the drive to work or something.

That's one of the few things I miss from not listening to the radio - music recommendations. I try and get recommendations from friends, and we pass around the digital equivalent to mix tapes, but I still don't get exposed to a lot of new music. That's probably the reason for me to try a subscription.

I like my iPod's interface, as well as iTunes. I'd hate to give that up, but it'll die some day.

- You can listen to Rhapsody from any internet connected Windows PC. (Mac support may be available, but I don't know first hand.) You can install the Rhapsody client or you can use Internet Explorer to reach it. The Rhapsody installer will reserve a gig of space for caching, and that's it. It downloads music sort of like how YouTube downloads videos. It drops the data into a bucket and pulls it out as needed, fills up the cache, clears it for older stuff, etc. I'm mentioning this for two reasons: 1.) Rhapsody is NOT active streaming. This is often preferred by internet saavy people. Seeking is no problem. 2.) You don't need lots of space. I'll talk about this more in a later point, but one of the things that drove me towards Rhapsody was a lost hard drive that had lots of MP3s on it. I personally use Rhapsody on my home machine, my work machine, and on my laptop. Once in a while I use a different workstation and I can just fire it up via IE. I don't have to 'sync' any files across these machines. Install, log-in, and go. I'm mentioning this to you because you've got a collection of a thousand CDs, right? I'd say a good 90 - 95% of those CDs is available on Rhapsody. If it's a hassle for you to maintain an MP3 collection that you want to listen to at work, you'd buy yourself some convenience here. (The dead hard drive caused me to look at Rhapsody, this particular perk caused me to keep it.)

My current solution is a 4 gig iPod. I use smart playlists to fill it with a combination of my highest rated songs, anything imported into iTunes less than a month ago, and random songs with low play numbers. About half my job is at a desk, and half is on my feet, so

Re:RealPlayer

[globaljustin]

It's been 11 years since then, and I'm still waiting to be able to purchase all those Nirvana shows

I'm right there with you. I write music reviews, and nirvana will always be the top for me. Granted, I didn't make a website with hundreds of bootlegs, but...man I would have downloaded every last one of them.

I was 15 in 1994, so I caught the tail end. Never had a real chance to see them live. I would cut off one of my toes to see them live.

What did you think of 'With the Lights Out'? I was very happy b/c if you take all the releases (the lame black 'Nirvana' courtney love jackoff included) and the boxed set you have:

1. original track
2. unplugged track
3. live track

for every song in their catalog at minimum. I've listened for over a decade, and I can say that I only really understand about 20% of their catalog as far as the songwriting. Take 'Scentless Apprentice'...it's a 10 line summary of the book Perfume (which also recently was made into a film)! When you discover something like that, it makes you wonder if you've missed anything else in Cobain's other songs.

yeah...i could talk about Nirvana forever

Re:RealPlayer

[toadlife]

I thought with the lights out was great, but was very disappointed that no live soundboard versions of Token Eastern song or Talk to Me (probably my favorite Nirvana song) were included. There was also a fantastic recording of "Here She Comes Now" from a radio station in Holland that was not included. Granted the HSCN recording is circulating almost perfect form in trading circles, but it would have been nice to get an official release of it.

I can only hope that they are holding out in regards to "talk to me" and that some day they will release another disc with a live version of it as the single.

As for the song meanings, I no expert at analysis, but my wife is working on her masters in English Literature and specializes in analyzing writings. In the book Come as You are, Cobain claimed that Heart Shaped box was about a little girl who he visited in the hospital who had cancer, and despite the fact that her illness was terminal and he was a rich rock star, she ended up counseling him. The author kind of poo-poos Cobains claim as BS, as everyone assumed the song had something to do with courtney (None of Cobain's songs were about Courtney Love!). My wife, having never read the book, looked at the lyrics and immediate nailed it, saying the song seemed to be about "Guilt over a burdening young girl who was sick, and had lost her fertility." A lot of time Cobain admitted that some songs contained mostly "throw away" lyrics and didn't really mean anything. In looking some of the stranger songs, my wife would spot ones and say, "these lyrics are crap. He was just filling space in this song."

Re:RealPlayer

[FredFredrickson]

I have to say, that's not neccessarily a bad thing. I consume music like it's popcorn, and I have a Yahoo music subscription. My problem is I listen to music all day long at work, and in the car. I need more new music, I just can't stand the same tunes over and over.

So, even though I have a library of thousands of songs in my Yahoo Music library- if I stopped paying, I wouldn't mind losing them, since I'm already sick of all of it. Thanks to my new [bad] habit of consuming music at such a high rate, I'm running out of good music to listen to, and I'm sick of all the stuff I'm done with. Only a subscription model would allow this - without spending thousands of dollars...

Re:RealPlayer

[jp10558]

I think it's also a perception problem. We've never had music rentals before, while everyone is ok with, and at a gut level, understands video/game rentals from Blockbuster, Netflix and back 20 + years of stuff. Music has always been a "buy" transaction, and people just think of it like that.

OTOH, the big deal here is that DRM gets in the way of freely competing rental companies, you can't buy a "music player de jure" like a Walkman or a CD player and get music from anywhere like you could with a VHS deck and blockbuster, Video King, Hollywood Video *or* the local shop.

I think for rental to take off, you'll need to be able to mix and match, and enable smaller locales to rent if they want to get into that. With the same sort of purchase mechanism as rental DVDs, not some really expensive up front costs.

Re:RealPlayer

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Hey, I don't really have anything to add but I did want to say thanks for reading what I had to say. (Can you tell I've had some rough experiences here lately?)

Good luck. :)

MS + Yahoo, Formula For Success

[Anonymous Coward]

There has to be some Ballmer PowerPoint slide somewhere deep inside Microsoft that looks like this:

1. Throw billions at fading dot com era giant in hopes to replace their own basket case of an online search and content efforts

2. ???

3. Profit!

Yahoo right now must be feeling like someone sitting at the side of the road with their car broken down and someone else with a broken down car comes up to them and offers them 40 billion to buy their car off them because they really need a lift...

Re:MS + Yahoo, Formula For Success

[mrxak]

Heh, I do think you're right. Microsoft buying out Yahoo really does seem desperate to me. I wouldn't mind if both companies ended up sinking each other, but then it would be far less interesting without all three search companies constantly fighting each other.

Re:MS + Yahoo, Formula For Success

[The_reformant]

+1 ???/profit meme
+1 car analogy
+1 MS bashing

Great post!

not well ?

[LinuxRulz]

The Mercury News wonders how the Yahoo-Real deal would fare if Microsoft takes over -- not well, the betting goes.

...unless microsoft also plan to buy Real.

Re:not well ?

[Billly Gates]

My guess is the plan was to redirect consumers to surge for media player at yahoo's site. Or perhaps the company is trying to sell it quickly before ms controls it. Perhaps Yahoo did this to increase their networth so the CEO could make some money before being totally under MS control.

But if I were MS I would just cancel the music subscription service or force them to use Surge.

Re:not well ?

[Kozar_The_Malignant]

>..unless microsoft also plan to buy Real.

Which brings up a couple of questions. Which sucks more, RealPlayer or MediaPlayer? Would some Satanic merging of the two programs become known as The Day That Music Died SP1?

Re:not well ?

[Khuffie]

To answer your question...

...iTunes. It is so slow and buggy on Windows. It's a joke.

Re:not well ?

[syousef]

Would some Satanic merging of the two programs become known as The Day That Music Died SP1?

No, Plays for sure.

That sucks

[DogDude]

As a long time user of Yahoo's "Launch" subscription music service, I think that sucks. Launch isn't perfect, but it's pretty darn good, and I've been happy to pay the $36/year for no ads and better sound quality. That being said, I won't install anything from Real Networks onto any of our machines, so it looks like I'm on the lookout for a replacement that's as good and as cheap as Launchcast. Shit.

Re:That sucks

[darkhitman]

Well, if you're looking for a replacement, I've tried out two streaming music sites recently that are pretty good:

http://www.imeem.com/ - Like youtube, but for music I guess. It has a lot of good playlists, even for my doom metal tastes.

http://www.pandora.com/ - Streaming internet radio, dissimilar to imeem in that it randomizes what it will play for you - though it tries to play music similar to what you like/tell it you like through some sort of algorithm. Good for finding new stuff. I found Electric Wizard here.

Re:That sucks

[szyzyg]

Yes with imeem around the only thing that a paid subscription is offering is the ability to download the music to your windows media compatible player.

Of course we all know QTrax is going to provide that feature for free too ;-)

Re:That sucks

[RealGrouchy]

That pandora sounds a lot like what I use Yahoo! Music Canada for. Unfortunately they are US only:

Dear Pandora Visitor,

We are deeply, deeply sorry to say that due to licensing constraints, we can no longer allow access to Pandora for listeners located outside of the U.S. We will continue to work diligently to realize the vision of a truly global Pandora, but for the time being we are required to restrict its use. We are very sad to have to do this, but there is no other alternative.

We believe that you are in Canada (your IP address appears to be xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx). If you believe we have made a mistake, we apologize and ask that you please contact us at pandora-support@pandora.com

If you are a paid subscriber, please contact us at pandora-support@pandora.com and we will issue a pro-rated refund to the credit card you used to sign up. If you have been using Pandora, we will keep a record of your existing stations and bookmarked artists and songs, so that when we are able to launch in your country, they will be waiting for you.

We will be notifying listeners as licensing agreements are established in individual countries. If you would like to be notified by email when Pandora is available in your country, please enter your email address below. The pace of global licensing is hard to predict, but we have the ultimate goal of being able to offer our service everywhere.

We share your disappointment and greatly appreciate your understanding.

Sincerely,

Tim Westergen

Tim Westergren
Founder Bummer.

Yahoo still works for now, so I'll wait until it stops working to shop around for the other ones listed elsewhere in the comments.

- RG>

Re:That sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey that imeem is kinda cool... but whats with all the pop-ish crap in the classical genre? I mean... High-school musical is classical?!?
They need to rename the classical section to "feel-good pap" & start a real classical section from scratch.

& the electronica genre is full of hip-hop!

some good stuff in world music tho :)

Re:That sucks

[WidgetGuy]

DuoDude,

If you liked Yahoo! LaunchCAST (free or Plus version), you will love Pandora. You can create custom stations by entering an artist's name (e.g., Steely Dan). The service then starts sending you music its matching algorithms think is similar to Steely Dan's music (a sound so unique to this day that this is a real challenge for their back-end algorithms).

I dumped LauunchCAST Plus about six months ago because they were releasing buggy versions of the player on a regular basis and their customer service never responded to problem tickets. I now have serveral custom stations on Pandora. I would say about 10% of the stuff they play for a given station is "new" (some indie stuff even gets in there). A simple click of the mouse allows you to give a song "thumbs up" or "thumbs down." You can also "tweak" your custom stations by entering other artist (or song) names.

Even though, initially, your custom station will be named after the artist you gave as an exemplar, you can easily change it to something more generic. For example, I have a station originally named J.S. Bach. Right after Pandora built the station for me, I simply opened my account and changed the name to Baroque Classical. Initially, Pandora was sending me too many pipe organ performances on this station. I can only take so much of that stuff. So, I went into the station edit page and added Andres Segovia to the station's exemplar artists list. All of a sudden, the pipe organ stuff diappeared and I started hearing some really cool classical guitar and lute performances. You have MUCH MORE control of your custom stations in Pandora than you did with Yahoo! LaunchCAST.

The sound quality is excellent (they use the Flash player -- go figure). It's at least equivalent to 128Kbps MP3. There are many other great features in Pandora. But, this response is already too long. Give a try. I think you'll love it.

Did I mention Pandora is ABSOULTELY FREE (although donations are always accepted).

WidgetGuy

Re:That sucks

[szyzyg]

My mother in law says exactly the same thing about the classical selection, but if you just search for bach or beethoven then there's plenty to listen to.

Re:That sucks

[tieTYT]

http://www.imeem.com/ - Like youtube, but for music I guess. It has a lot of good playlists, even for my doom metal tastes.

imeem's user interface sucks: Get your back button ready, you'll be using it a lot. Even if there is a way to listen to things without having to go to a specific page, the UI still sucks because it isn't immediately obvious to me how to do it.

A really good music website is http://www.thesixtyone.com/ Their selection of music is very tiny, but the UI is amazing. You can play any song without having to load a new page. When you're listening to one song, you can visit other pages and even search without the music stopping. After you get used to this UI, you'll wish youtube worked the same way.

whats going on with Yahoo

[Brigadier]

First they ship all there pictures to flicker, then they get rid of there version of myspace 360. Now yahoo music. I understand restructuring but they are doing horrible things to the brand. With the news of msn trying to by them out. If I was an investor I would be bailing out. Without content what do users flock to ?

Re:whats going on with Yahoo

[jupiterssj4]

I was using Flickr before it migrated and I liked that I could use my Yahoo user name and password there, but I did have a few pictures on Yahoo pictures, but nothing more than profile pictures that I just erased. Flickr is much more powerful and for photo buffs like me

Re:whats going on with Yahoo

[surendran]

Coming next 1.Yahoo Mail Shutting Down, Users Going to ***** 2.Yahoo Search Shutting Down, Users Going to ***** Wats happening with yahoo???

Re:whats going on with Yahoo

[SailorSpork]

They probably ran the numbers and found that Launch was costing more money than it was bringing in ($6/mo too low?), so they sold their customers to a service that had a price point that could make money. Maybe it could have made money with more subscribers, but subscription rates must have fallen off, so they made the decision to bail out.

As a longtime Yahoo user

[WillAffleckUW]

This news is making me think of bailing from Yahoo and going to Google and Real.

It's a shame, as I've loved Yahoo, but if need be, consumers don't have to stick around on the Web.

crap crap crap

[jupiterssj4]

I have used Yahoo Launchcast plus and then migrated to the Yahoo Music Engine (now Jukebox) since they were started and this just sucks. I never wanted Real. Seeing that there are still thousands of people complaining about the migration from MusicMatch to Yahoo Jukebox, I think this is going to be a major problem and I surely hope that the price does not increase. I remember when it used to be 55 a year and now its near 70, I am not willing to pay any more. This sucks!

Re:crap crap crap

[jupiterssj4]

plus, there was just an article on digg where real was considered badware: http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/006421.html

Re:crap crap crap

[ScrewMaster]

I remember when it used to be 55 a year and now its near 70, I am not willing to pay any more. This sucks!

Yes, well ... in a crunch, I guess there's always Gnutella. Pricing is better than most, I understand, even if the quality is somewhat uneven.

Am I responsible?

[ls354]

I cancelled my service last week, damn never imagened that my service cancellation could have such an effect on Yahoo. "I am great"

Forcing badware on users ?

[Anonymous Coward]

thanks Yahoo! http://www.stopbadware.org/reports/reportdisplay?reportname=realplayer01282008

Re:Forcing badware on users ?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Forcing badware on users ?

thanks Yahoo!

http://www.stopbadware.org/reports/reportdisplay?reportname=realplayer01282008 Rhapsody != RealPlayer. You and the idiots that wasted modpoints on your post don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

Re:Forcing badware on users ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, fuck you too, arsehole.

If you'd read that page, you'd clearly see that RealPlayer 11 indeed includes Rhapsody.

Re:Forcing badware on users ?

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Well, fuck you too, arsehole.

If you'd read that page, you'd clearly see that RealPlayer 11 indeed includes Rhapsody.

RealPlayer comes with the engine that plays Rhapsody music. That is not the Rhapsody client. When you join Rhapsody, you download the Rhapsody Client, not Real Player. Basically what I'm getting at is you still don't know what you're talking about. Worse, you're actually spreading FUD. (Amusingly, you would have gotten this if YOU had read the page you linked to.) You see, Real Player is not forced upon you. You're not even tricked into downloading it like iTunes and Quicktime. (Which is probably why you and the numbnut mods believe what you're saying without challenging it.)

Since you're so adamant about arguing with me about this, I'll just take a moment here to explain something: I am a Rhapsody subscriber. I have been for years. I've installed it a number of times. Wanna hear something fascinating? I have never once installed Real Player while installing Rhapsody. When you sign up for Rhapsody, you are taken to a download link, and all you download is the Rhapsody client. You don't have to, for example, go find the 'basic' version of Rhapsody or go hunting around the site for a de-packaged version. The truth of the matter is, if you want to have both Rhapsody and Real installed, you have to root around for two different downloads. (At least coming from the point of view of somebody signing up for Rhapsody, which is what these users from Yahoo will be asked to do.)

I really don't care if you think I'm an 'arsehole'. I think you're an 'arsehole' for spouting bullshit. Frankly, if the roles were reversed you'd again think I was an 'arsehole'. You can sit there and be mad at me for not being diplomatic in my original post (which I admit to. Not my proudest moment). Or you can sit there, realize your mistake, and learn from it. Your choice. Either way, have a nice day. :)

Re:Forcing badware on users ?

[NanoGator]

Parent poster, despite his language, has a point. Real Player vs. Rhapsody is like QuickTime vs. iTunes... only without the dual-installer. The wrong post is being modded down.

I'm confused...

[owlnation]

So, let me get this straight...

A company, that is dying evermore quickly by the day it seems, is shedding some of its users to another company. One that is, to all intents and purposes, long dead after committing suicide a few years back by installing what was essentially a virus into people's computers.

I think that's pretty much it, isn't it? Yep, still makes no sense.

Done for MS

[webmaster404]

I bet that this was done for the possible buyout of Yahoo by MS. Even though the US DoJ will surely let it through, the EU will be less certain, by stripping Yahoo down it can make it seem that all MS is buying is the Yahoo search engine and that is going to make it seem less like MS is trying to get an internet monopoly, not to mention that there probably is an exchange of cash somewhere and if MS gets Yahoo they get that cash.

Seems like to me Yahoo really wants those billions MS is offering and will do anything to get EU approval, or this is just coincidence that it happened with the proposed buyout.

Subscription DRM services

[nurb432]

Yet another example of why you never want to sign up with one. No matter how good the company is, *today*.

Re:Subscription DRM services

[syousef]

There are two things for which I've never understood how they can be viable: Bottled water sold for the same price as soft drink, and DRM music. The thing is I'd buy bottled water if I had to in order to survive since we all need water, but why oh why would you buy DRM music when you can get a CD??? No wonder the record companies have become so fat and greedy!

Re:Subscription DRM services

[Carcass666]

Actually, my understanding on a subscription deal is that you pay an agreed upon amount of money to have access to a source of music for an agreed upon amount of time. Unless Yahoo is not giving their customers the ability to opt-out of a prolonged subscription (instead of switching to Rhapsody), I don't see how there is any bad faith on their part, or a problem with subscription models in general.

It would be a different story if I purchased a track and the DRM on the file required connection to a back-end server that didn't exist in the future (like Google video). In that case, if I purchased a track, and if I am denied future access to it then I should get a full refund. I agree with you if you're saying that purchasing a track with the potential of being denied access to it later should be avoided.

In Rhapsody's case, you can buy tracks (most of the time) by burning them onto a CD. Some artists are allowing purchase of unencumbered mp3's, nicer yet. Sometimes, artists may pull their music from Rhapsody (like Radiohead, bastards), in which case I can decide to cancel my subscription if it pisses me off enough. At any rate, I am paying a subscription to legitimately listen to music (and maybe get the artist 1/1000th of a penny when I do so). Works well enough for me.

Re:Subscription DRM services

[ragefan]

There are two things for which I've never understood how they can be viable: Bottled water sold for the same price as soft drink, and DRM music. Probably because the cost isn't the water (and other ingredients for soft drinks) but rather the plastic bottle it is in, and the marketing and distribution of the product.

Re:Subscription DRM services

[imnlfn]

It would be a different story if I purchased a track and the DRM on the file required connection to a back-end server that didn't exist in the future (like Google video). In that case, if I purchased a track, and if I am denied future access to it then I should get a full refund. I agree with you if you're saying that purchasing a track with the potential of being denied access to it later should be avoided.

Unfortunately, this is the case with Yahoo Music, at least in my experience. I purchased tracks from them, then tried playing those tracks on a different computer, but found I had to connect to Yahoo Music again to make them playable there.

So what happens when, years from now, I buy a new computer and can no longer play those tracks? From whom exactly should I demand a refund, since with the way things seem to be heading, Yahoo in its entirety may no longer exist?

Re:Subscription DRM services

[Carcass666]

If it's a purchase, then you're right, it's fscked up.

In the case of Rhapsody, it's a subscription, and if Rhapsody isn't around a year from now you won't be listening to your tracks, but you won't be paying for a subscription either.

Re:Subscription DRM services

[Bill_the_Engineer]

but why oh why would you buy DRM music when you can get a CD??? No wonder the record companies have become so fat and greedy!

You don't buy DRM music, you subscribe to a service. I buy CDs for DRM free music that I own, but I subscribed to Yahoo Unlimited to listen to random stuff while on the road.

Why? Because that $15 CD has only 10 songs on it, while my $13/month subscription has 100s of thousands of songs available...

Why oh why can you understand? ;)

Re:Subscription DRM services

[mypalmike]

why oh why would you buy DRM music when you can get a CD???

As a happy yahoo music subscriber (who also has an extensive CD collection), a few bucks every month gives me access to an unlimited amount of music from millions of albums. If someone mentions a band they like, or I want to listen to some album I heard about long ago but never listened to, or whatever, I just go on Yahoo music and listen to it. No extra charge, I get the real deal, high quality, legal album. I have diverse and changing musical tastes, so it's a perfect all-you-can-eat buffet as far as I'm concerned.

/ Not so happy that yahoo is selling me to Real.

Re:Subscription DRM services

[MBraynard]

My brother's music is available on iTunes and on Real. He gets $0.70 for each song sold on iTunes, and something like $0.12 off of real or one of the other subscription servicecs services. Not a lot, but not 1/1000th of a sent.

So, uh, help him out and download alexanderbe or Alex Ander Be (don't remember).

How to monetize -- Yahoo style.

[whoever57]

One assumes that Yahoo could have raised prices -- to the same level as Real now charges. However, this would incur quite a lot of displeasure amongst users. This deal will undoubtably incur some displeasure, but, some of that will be directed against Real, not Yahoo.

So, Yahoo presumably has a deal under which it will be able to be compensated for the lost revenue (perhaps even the revenue which could have been gained by increasing prices) without the pain of actually putting up prices. THere may be some upfront cash which may help in a battle aginst Microsoft.

The problem is that the net result is less eyeballs on Yahoo's pages. It's those eyeballs that are Yahoo's value. The long term effect of this may be a net reduction in revenue.

The Big Questions: How do users transfer?

[JoeCommodore]

I have a friend who uses it pretty regular probably has a 1000 songs he listens to (DRMed - has to check in regularly to keep them alive).

I wonder how it will transfer?
Will it transfer (DRM compatibility)?
Will Real support his devices?
And what songs will he loose access to due to the transfer (from RI contract differences between Cos.)

If they do it right he probably will keep going with them, if they mess it up he probably will leave along with others.

Re:The Big Questions: How do users transfer?

[Stachybotris]

My question is: How does this affect people who subscribe to LAUNCHcast plus? I've had a subscription to that for a couple of years now, and the article makes absolutely no mention of it. While I'm not really opposed to seeing if the new Real Player is as non-evil as what some other posters have said, it's still bound to be a pain.

Though I suppose it might be a win anyway... If Real actually works well under Linux, and all of Yahoo!'s music services move over, then I would actually be able to use my subscription at home, instead of just at work.

Re:The Big Questions: How do users transfer?

[Alexpkeaton1010]

I am worried about how my subscription to Yahoo Music Unlimited will transfer. I signed up for 2 years for $79 (Pay for 1 year get 1 year free if you use a Mastercard), which is an absolute steal, DRM or not. If Rhapsody honors my 2 years then I will be a happy camper. If they just convert my $79 into 6.5 months of subscription, I will be one irate nerd.

(BTW, you can transcode the WMAs into MP3s so you can use them on an iPOD. A minor hassle but easy enough. I don't notice any quality loss although theoretically there is.)

FTC.GOV, anyone

[keraneuology]

Already lodged my complaint of anti-competitive behavior. They've stopped deals that were less obnoxious than that one....

Sansa Connect

[Maxwell309]

I really like my Sansa Connect WiFi enabled player with the Yahoo Music Unlimited service. I knew there was trouble ahead but I figured it would still work as a regular mp3 player once Yahoo Music Unlimited goes dark. The Sansa Connect runs Linux and uses Mono. Time to start hacking. A general purpose WiFi internet radio receiver would be cool. You can find Sansa Connects for under $90 as recently as last week and probably less next week.

Re:Sansa Connect

[seanonymous]

I've really been enjoying using my Sansa Connect. It's like a cross between satellite radio and a Tivo. And being able to listen to whatever album strikes my fancy while I use Yahoo Music at my desk has been nice, too, but there's no way I'll ever install another piece of software from Real. They had their chance.

Well, back to the P2P music for me.

I tried to go legit, I really did, and now I own a little black brick.

My advice to anyone else in my situation is to download as much music as you can before they shut down, then use TuneBite to turn it all into mp3s. It's only fair.

Not a surprise

[BanjoBob]

After all the complaints by digruntled customers after Yahoo Downgrades MusicMatch Jukebox and removed many of the features of that application, failed to get it working 100%, and a host of other problems, one might ask why they just didn't give the customer what they want? That was the return of the MusicMatch Jukebox program the way it was in its last release.

It seems that the music business is in the business of denying customers what they want. Just as the RIAA is seeing drastic declines in music sales because of similar tactics and a blatant refusal to monetize the net, Yahoo! music did the same thing - refusing to satisfy their customers and give them value for their dollar. This is what happens.

One must ask, "why they never learn?" There are better and more value-for-your-dollar options out there. All Yahoo Music had to do was give the consumer value for their dollar.

Re:Not a surprise

[peektwice]

You are correct about the music business denying customers what they want. They want good music, in an easy, small format that they can play on anything. The music industry wants you to buy the format flavor of the day (record, tape, CD, whatever...full of one or two good songs and 10 crappy ones) and then buy it again in ten years or so when they deem the old one obsolete. They're willing to fight unfairly to prop up their collapsed business model, and are currently doing so.
On a side note, I personally believe the demise of MusicMatch Jukebox is not only due to the factors that you mention, but also the development of iTunes for Windows, which then became the de-facto software for use with an iPod. (Anyone else remember when a Windows iPod shipped with MusicMatch?)

Re:Not a surprise

[eatvegetables]

Well, they also would have to stop sucking. Ironically, I gave up on Yahoo music a few weeks ago. The quality of the "services" that they still claimed to be offering was so horrible as to be pretty much unusable. Those bozos over at Yahoo couldn't even keep their track licensing consistent and in good working order. I've finally arrived at the same conclusion that those (many) far smarter than I arrived at long ago, a subscription music service is a bad consumer model. $13/mo adds up to quite a lot of purchased music from Amazon or elsewhere over the course of a year. Plus no more licensing problems that always seemed to occur at the worst times.

Re:Not a surprise

[ProppaT]

I've used Yahoo Music Unlimited since the beginning of it's beta days and, even though the software has always been less than stellar, the software wasn't what drew me to the service. The great music selection and my ability to listen to it whenever I wanted to for $7 a month was a tremendous value for me. I'm going to weep the day it goes away and, unhappily, probably switch over to Rhapsody and pay twice as much a month for a selection of music that's not as good. I can't say I'm a happy camper. Yahoo would have had a winning service on their hands had they allowed MusicMatch engineers time to do the YMJ software the RIGHT way (I've spoken to disgruntled MusicMatch employees and none of them spoke very highly of Yahoo...) and if they would have actually marketed the service. No one's ever heard of it, even though it's by far the best service of its kind around. Kinda sad if you ask me.

Re:Not a surprise

[shlashdot]

I used Yahoo for a while too, but happily switched to Rhapsody to have something that would work. Actually the only reason I switched to Yahoo originally was the bitrate, but Rhapsody has improved that a bit, fortunately. I haven't noticed much difference in selection. I just use the browser plugin or whatever, not the full Real app.

Conspiracy

[Anonymous Coward]

It can't be a coincidence, that it has happened just after Microsoft declared they are going to absorb them. They are certainly trying to commit suicide by disabling all their services and getting rid of their users.
Please die Yahoo before it's too late, for the good of all my internets, for the good of the whole mankind!

Holy cow!

[caywen]

Is this for Real??

I like Rhapsody, but I forsee problems...

[Exp315]

I wasn't a believer in the music subscription model either, but eventually I tried Rhapsody on a free trial, and I discovered that I like it and I would use it. I think I would even pay the new higher monthly subscription price for it. That is I would if I didn't live in Canada, where I'm not allowed to subscribe to Rhapsody because of the regional licensing schemes of the big music cartels. But Yahoo Unlimited provided service in Canada, so I subscribed to that instead. So now Rhapsody is going to take over Yahoo's music subscription service? So what happens to the Canadian subscribers? The big problem with new service models like this is that they invest a ton of money in getting people to know and accept their model - but then they can't keep it stable long enough for people to get comfortable with it. Why invest your time and effort in understanding the current deal and figuring out if it's workable for you, when they're just going to change it arbitrary next month?

Foxytunes

[dmoti]

I've just heard that Yahoo bought foxytunes http://www.foxytunes.com/
for 40-50 M$. Interestingly it started as a Firefox add-on now if Microsoft will
buy Yahoo it'll develop add-ons for Firefox !

Real is still around?!?!

[elrous0]

Am I the only one moderately shocked to learn they're even still around? I thought they got bought out years ago.

YMU helped me go straight.

[Qwavel]

I was one of those people who justified my music swapping by pointing out that the industry had not provided a compelling and reasonable alternative. With Yahoo Music Unlimited that changed and I went straight.

I pay $6 a month (or $3 if you sign up via Mastercard) and I get almost everything. It totally changed the way that I listen to music. It's like I own everything and now only have to worry about what I like/dislike. I discover much more new stuff now. And I think it is quite reasonable that I have to keep paying to maintain access to my music.

So now I must start paying $13 a month and install software from the dreaded RN, or go back to being a pirate. Damn.

Re:Worst story ever

[MBraynard]

I heard this yesterday. I am a current Yahoo subscriber and love it. I've tried Rhapsody and it is awful.

Yahoo's product wasn't perfect, but it was much better than what everyone else had.

Yahoo was very open about their new music service when it started. It worked great for me - unlimited music for $6 a month. Every new album each week - over 50 on average - and everything cataloged and easily searchable. And all available to go on my portable player.

I am pretty sure I am not going to stay with Real because their product sucks and Rob Glaser is a socialist, so I am going to have to check out the other PlaysforSure offerings.

yahoo music?

[CrazyTalk]

Don't you mean Microsoft Music? Oh wait, its not official yet!

Serves them right for Music Match FUBAR

[7erPilot]

I am a MusicMatch subscriber that was more than just a little upset about the whole Yahoo Music takeover. I am glad they flopped. Serves them right. I keep waiting for a class action suit to come down the pike. I still use MusicMatch but, I fear having to reinstall my PC someday and losing it forever.

Re:Worst story ever

[Anonymous Coward]

What retard wasted one mod point labeling this relevant comment as a 'troll'?