Yahoo Offers Compensation For Unplayable Music

DrEnter writes "According to this article, Yahoo will offer some compensation after they turn off their DRM servers and Yahoo Music customers will no longer be able to access their music. The company said Wednesday it is offering coupons on request for people to buy songs again through Yahoo's new partner, RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody. Those songs will be in the MP3 format, free of copy protection. Refunds are available for users who 'have serious problems with this arrangement,' Yahoo said. Nice to see them step up and do something, especially without trading one DRM scheme for another."

Comments

About Time

[Anonymous Coward]

But what they really should do is offer a unique ID, so that you can listen to it anywhere in the world, anytime you want.

Unexpected

[Itninja]

With so much 'stick it to the customer' activity from corporations in the past several years regarding digital music, it is indeed nice to see one of the big players actually offer this without being forced to by a lawsuit. It almost makes up for forcing me to get a Yahoo account to continue using Flickr. Almost.

Well...

[harryHenderson]

at least they are doing the stand up thing. However it would be better if it weren't opt-in.

Want DRM? Support it!

[corsec67]

A good change to the DMCA would be that if someone wants to sell something with DRM that they have to support it until the copyright expires, and then have an unencrypted version placed in escrow for when {the copyright expires, the company goes bankrupt, the company turns off the drm servers}.

Now the infinity+ copyright times seem excessive when it comes back on the music sellers.

Re:Want DRM? Support it!

[mr_matticus]

I don't have to put copyright notices on my works nor register them with some central governing agency.

But if you want to sell DRM'd copies, you should supply a non-DRM'd copy to ensure that once the copyright expires, there is another version available. This has the benefit of ensuring a richer public domain (because many works simply disappear before the end of copyright).

However, the parent's suggestion is not without problems. First and foremost, where does the DRM-free copy go? The government isn't (and shouldn't) pay for a database of the files. You can't mandate that a business stay in operation. What would be the incentive for private industry to store files without sharing them for decades? Is most of the stuff we buy even worth anything when copyright expires?

On the last point, most of what is produced vanishes because it doesn't matter. It has no real significance, no staying power, and a century from now, nobody will even care about it. Thus, the inability to access DRM'd files is a non-issue for most of the consumer product. Products with the enduring popularity or cultural significance to survive copyright will almost certainly be maintained from the original in a useful manner (whereas a WMA from 2008 might be useless, low quality trash in 2100). Very little is available solely in DRM-wrapped formats; it's a consumer option for low price disposables. Contrary to the Slashdot conspiracy, no media industry is hoping for a pay-for-play setup being the only option. It might be the wet dream of a few greedy people, but as someone who works daily with content creators seeking to protect their interests and sell their work, that's the exception, not the rule.

Once the copyright expires, it doesn't matter whether you acquired it as a DRM'd file, a DRM-free file, or on CD. You can just delete the DRM'd file and acquire a then-modern-format, high quality copy wherever you like.

Was their agreement with you worded such that you were right to assume that the song would be available to use at your discretion (i.e. without dependance on their DRM servers), or did they leave enough loopholes in to make it known that the song will only work in the presence of their DRM servers, and that those servers were not guaranteed to work past a certain point?

This is a little backwards. Unless they made an explicit guarantee about future availability and compatibility, future prospects are just that: prospective. Supposition. A gamble. If technology, society, or any other element changes, rendering an investment worthless, you just lost. It's not any different anywhere else.

Re:Duh... they had to.

[rtechie]

Mod the parent up please.

As he said, Yahoo HAD to do this. Killing the license server violates their contract with the credit card company for "non-delivered goods". As far as Visa is concerned, breaking the tracks is the same as shipping an empty box. Most people don't grasp that chargebacks are a major money-maker for the credit card companies, and they'll typically bend over backwards to accommodate the customer because each one can net then between $50 and $500 for Visa/Mastercard/etc. Yes, some merchants really are billed $500 for each chargeback.

They would also face an inevitable class-action as pissed-off customers attempt to recover their losses.

Re:Real player

[Max Littlemore]

Do they pay you for the effort of having to repurchase the same songs? I wasn't silly enough to buy this DRM ladened shite, but if I was, I would insist that they not only offer me vouchers to buy the same songs, but that they also compensate me for my time in repurchasing the same songs. Or did they warn people that they would have to do maintenance on their music collections?

Do they offer a complete library to choose from?

[gd2shoe]

Now wait.

Who said that they were being offered vouchers for the same songs? They implied it, but I don't see anyone saying that every song previously available with DRM be available from Real. The only thing they said is that the songs that are available from Real will be without DRM. There is a huge potential difference there.

Any affected customers want to tell us if they think they can have their entire library transfered over? Does anybody have a clue more than my cynical speculation?

Re:Real player

[Aadomm]

Its not offtopic and you are wrong. The issue is not with 'early versions of RealPlayer' the issue is with the horrific and unnecessary baggage which traditionally comes with any RealPlayer install to date. If you don't understand then go and educate yourself.

Re:Real player

[Anonymous Coward]

Rhapsody, the music service by the guys that make Real Player, uses MP3s for their music format. Surprisingly, they even screw this up. The music available on all major competing music services (Amazon, iTunes, etc) sounds substantially better, even in the same format, than what is offered on Rhapsody. Now this is just my opinion. But I believe it as fact.

The quality difference is such that I wonder if they watermark the files with downloader's credit card information.

Re:Real player

[_KiTA_]

How is this offtopic? Experiences with Real Player were so unsatisfactory that many people I know won't use ever use a RealNetworks product.

*buffering*

Perhaps because it's 5 year old FUD that doesn't apply anymore, ever since Real actually started doing good things -- like ignoring codecs that are probably violating their IP and supporting Open Source Media Initiatives.

Seriously. We get it. Real circa 1990 sucked. Real circa 2008 is actually a pretty good company. Hell, they even added a "download this stream" button to RealPlayer, in open defiance to the MPAA/RIAA. We should be CELEBRATING stuff like this, not attacking them for mistakes of their pas... *BUFFERING*

Re:Real player

[AmberBlackCat]

You know, I think the main reason for that "buffering" problem was broadband wasn't as common then. It got a lot better for me after I got access to high speed connections. Maybe the RealPlayer was just before its time.

Re:Real player

[onecheapgeek]

Well, you had better hope your car is never subject to a recall, because you are going to be SORELY disappointed when they tell you to bring it in between 9 and 5. If they have a courtesy car, you might get one that is vastly different than yours. Otherwise, it's a rental they've arranged on the cheap. Might even have a CD player.

Sure, you can try to make waves, but what is your alternative? You think there's gonna be a lawsuit over this? "You see, Your Honor, they HAVE to stay in business because my music is important. If they go out of business, I'll have to get the music from somewhere else. And that 2 hours is very important to me. So no, them offering to pay to replace my songs WITH FILES SANS DRM isn't enough. I want $80 an hour while I buy the replacements."

Re:Real player

[eWarz]

RealPlayer may be bad, but as a yahoo user who has recently migrated to rhapsody, I can tell you that Rhapsody is superior in every way and I've NEVER had a problem from them. They are WAY better than yahoo music. You can also listen to the music on linux/os-x for their subscription service thanks to the flashed based web player. I HATED real player, but rhapsody is nothing like it.

Re:Real player

[Anonymous Coward]

It wasn't that long ago that they were spying on us, though. That's why I'm boycotting. Oh, and their UI looks like the entrance to a Tijuana strip club circa 2069.

Re:Real player

[Anonymous Coward]

Real circa 2008 is actually a pretty good company.

wikipedia quote:
"In 2006, Power Metal band Rhapsody had to change its name to Rhapsody of Fire after running into a trademark dispute with Rhapsody parent RealNetworks, which owned the Rhapsody trademark in the United States. The band Rhapsody had been around four years before the launch of the Rhapsody service."

Re:Real player

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had been a Yahoo! music customer, I would be pretty upset right now---even though Real is offering the files unencumbered.

Sure, this particular product might not have any awful crap attached to it, but I'd be supporting Real Networks. Only to the tune of whatever Yahoo! is compensating them, which is probably not much, but I'd rather not be responsible for Real earning a single dollar.