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

Real player

[SoupGuru]

How much would they have to pay you to interact with the company that makes Real Player?

Re:Real player

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

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

Perhaps it's off-topic because, as even the summary points out, the alternative being offered is in unprotected MP3 format: hardly a proprietary RealNetworks product, nor likely to suffer from the same problems that plagued early versions of RealPlayer. One man's joke is another man's unconstructive and irrelevant cheap shot; YMMV.

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

[_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*

Surprising

[EdIII]

I really am surprised that Yahoo stepped up like this. Really Surprised.

The offer to receive a DRM-free MP3 seems pretty darn reasonable to me. I wonder why Microsoft did not stand up and offer anything remotely as reasonable as this considering their size when they were going to shut down their DRM servers.

DRM has always been a less valuable product inherently, but Yahoo has backed up the customer and made sure they will be able to play the music they paid for.

I almost feel.... hopeful.

Good for Yahoo. They did the right thing.

Duh... they had to.

[LostCluster]

"Company complies with rules to avoid chargebacks" should be the headline.

When you sell a perpetual license that needs to be reauthorized every so often, you have to either keep your license server up forever, or ofter to give customers all their money back.

We saw this happen when Google Video shut down. At first Google thought they could get away with giving out Google Checkout credits, but the credit card industry upheld chargebacks so they had to refund all credit card charges too.

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:Duh... they had to.

[compro01]

Just because a contract says something doesn't mean it is legally valid.

Now if only...

[Samantha Wright]

...we could get some compensation for all of the unlistenable music that has come out in recent years, then perhaps we could move on.

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.

Hooray.

[FlyingSquidStudios]

And there was much rejoicing from all 12 people who signed up for the service.

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?