For a company that has all the business to no worry about a cutback in users, the idea of shutting down support for a service they provide sounds absurd; and when we say the word, Yahoo pops out screaming with its latest ‘make me the headline’ news. What is that? Yahoo plans at cutting out support for its music store.
The report says that customers won’t be able to revive frozen tracks or move working ones to a new storage location, the reason being that Yahoo won’t be providing keys to the songs DRM. All this in simpler terms means that if you have got some music from Yahoo and you plan to at making changes to your system even if it’s your operating system; say goodbye to all that music.
There have been similar steps taken by both Microsoft and Sony; who tried to pull the shutter down on their music stores and not offering support to their customers for the music that they had already purchased. The result was customers backfiring and that too in numbers. As Jon Healey reports that both Sony and Microsoft extended support; Sony till the end of this year and Microsoft for the next three years.
So why isn’t Yahoo worried about facing the same? One reason could be a very small number of people bought music from Yahoo to make some noise. But whatever the case be, it’s hard to believe that Yahoo, with its enormous traffic has to go about doing such a thing.
So were the customers at liberty to appropriately back up their data? Definitely, Yahoo encouraged such an act; that of copying their music to DRM-free CDs and put it back on as MP3. This is done so because once the Music store goes down, the license keys generated to the music purchased would no longer be retrieved. There is not much point in arguing over this, as the decision has been taken, what remains to be seen is the reaction of its customers and to wait and see if Yahoo extends its date for closure. We are putting up the email sent by Yahoo regarding its ‘Music store’ shut down:
The Yahoo! Music Store, along with the ability to purchase and download single songs and albums, will no longer be available as of September 30, 2008.
Songs and albums that were purchased through the Yahoo! Music Unlimited Store are protected by a digital rights management system that requires a valid license key before they can be played on your computer.
After the Store closes, Yahoo! will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for music purchased from Yahoo! Music Unlimited, and Yahoo! will no longer be able to authorize song playback on additional computers.
After September 30, 2008, you will not be able to transfer songs to unauthorized computers or re-license these songs after changing operating systems. Please note that your purchased tracks will generally continue to play on your existing authorized computers unless there is a change to the computer’s operating system.
For any user who purchased tracks through Yahoo! Music Unlimited, we highly recommend that you back up the purchased tracks to an audio CD before the closing of the Store on September 30, 2008. Backing up your music to an audio CD will allow you to copy the music back to your computer again if the license keys for your original music files cannot be retrieved.
For further information on the closing of the Yahoo! Music Store, please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions or contact Customer Care.
Stay tuned! While the Yahoo! Music Unlimited Store will no longer be available, Yahoo! Music has partnered with Rhapsody so you can still purchase your favorite tracks. Plus, Yahoo! Music will continue to offer users a complete online music experience with the largest collection of music videos, Internet radio, exclusive artist features, music news, and more!
Thank you for using Yahoo! Music.
The Yahoo! Music team
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