The problem is very simple for both MSN and Yahoo and any other company out there.

Save all your time and money on lawsuits and stop the outcry of theft.

Need a solution? Here it is Yahoo, for free..

Make a algorithmic key generator for the public to unlock their own music.

Should cost around $500, and that includes professional development of the keygen, and web space to host it for download for the next 50 years.

See what DRM has done! Your FCKD!

No your not. Burn it to a cd and rip it back as an mp3. Takes a few minutes.

Yeah, compress the compressed music and end up with something that sounds worse than a cassette tape.

11,000 songs? You tosser.

See what the music industry has done for you? I love to hate these people.

Never again will they see a dime (from me), unless I get reimbursed for the 14 awful tracks out of 16 on all the CD's I own. For years, you were forced to buy complete albums as records (45's) finally went away, or you could buy (some) singles on cassette.

They know they had you by the balls, forcing you to spend $15-20 on two decent songs if you wanted to purchase them. I don't feel bad at all for downloading music.

At 99 cents per track, they owe me about $14,000 dollars. When I have downloaded that many free songs, I will consider paying for music once again.

'Tosser' !? I didn't know that word made it to the red necks...

Rednecks work hard manual jobs for a living. I can guarantee you I barely know the meaning of the word labor.

As A matter of fact, I would rather have arabs on one side of me, blacks on the other, and Mexicans across the street before I was surrounded by white trash.

You think people purchasing from iTunes are at all concerned with quality?

Seriously?

Oh that's a good one. Did it take you long? moron.

Maybe that's your problem. go crawl back under the rock you came from troll.

It depends on how bad the quality is.

This was always going to be an issue as companies either dropped their services or changed schemes. I don't think these companies realized the long-term issue of supporting DRM's tracks they sell (or they did and said screw the public, we'll deal with it then). Eventually Apple will face this issue. Not because iTunes will go away, but because sooner or later they will convert their entire library to non-DRM.

Here's another issue thats always bothered me, legally as we move more and more to digital formats and away from physical how do you support your digital formats on a legal basis. The RIAA seems to contend that any digital track non-DRM'd are illegal copies. I'd like to know how a digital purchase appears on a Credit Card / Bank Account bill? And how does 'transferring' it to audio CD in order to keep your DRM's track (in essense circumventing the DRM) after expiration in a new digital format does NOT violate DMCA?

Good points, but the article was about Yahoo Music Unlimited which allowed you to burn to cd.

Hey, it's all about buying DRM-FREE music over at Amazon.com. Awesome sounding MP3's.

The new Filter album rocks the house and I bought the MP3's direct from the site. Nothing to download if you buy singles.

That's the way things like this should be.

Absolutely --- I started doing that very soon after they made it available. I was even able to get a refund one time for something I bought where I realized afterwards that I already had it.

That kind of trust made me very comfortable with buying MP3 albums from Amazon which I do so quite often now....oh and look, they play on all the devices I own....(wow)

(No affiliation with Amazon)

Protected Music Converter.

Search for it in the FileForum. Gets rid of the DRM.

Anyone who bought any DRM'ed music from any other source than the iTunes music store deserves the discomfort. You were all warned by many people not to count on this crap.

Moral of the story in any case (even with iTunes) is that DRM is dead, so stop buying it. You can buy and download DRM free music now.

And what makes iTunes' DRM any different?

It is a profit center for many corporations and will be around ten years from now.

Really, one shouldn't invest in a future defunct drm scheme, but since nobody can predict the future....

Umm, so Yahoo is encouraging people to break the law (DMCA and circumvent DRM/copy protection schemes)?

I'm just surprised no one has brought it up yet - maybe Yahoo is just setting it up for the RIAA to hit up all the people who remove the DRM from their music.

That's part of the "crap" that I'm talking about.

I believe they're only saying 'transfer to CD' and nothing more.

According to their email they say "Backing up your music to an audio CD will allow you to copy the music back to your computer"

So it's more than just transferring to CD. They're telling their customers to break the law.

It's not breaking the law unless you share it.

Even if you share the music by means other than the internet.

Circumventing DRM is breaking the law (according to the DMCA), whether you share it or not.

With all do respect DRM is not a monolithic acronym that everyone follows. DRM has always been a technology that individual companies or groups tweaked to satisfy their own licensing requirements (I said tweaked not changed completely. Different companies negotiated different agreements). Yahoo's version of DRM is slightly different than Wal-Marts and so on. They can tweak their own rules. Yahoo's DRM for the unlimited plan allowed you to burn songs to CD's. [From their site:[Burning Music to CDs] One issue with subscription music is that you can't burn it to CDs. This is part of the digital rights management (DRM) restrictions mentioned above. It's not hard to see why this is: there has to be a way to prevent the music from being copied and illegally traded. However, a lot of people really like to own music they can burn to CDs, and we totally get that. So, we made buying retail downloads less expensive when you have a Yahoo! Music Unlimited subscription. If you have a song or album you really want to burn to CD, you can buy it with burn rights at generally a 20% discount over most other online retail prices. You purchase those songs separately from your monthly subscription dues, and they do not expire if you end your monthly subscription.]

All Yahoo did here was to tweak their DRM to make it okay for you to copy the purchased music back to the computer.

This really makes me glad I never fell for this crap. I see no reason for doing things like this.

Check this article out:

http://news.cnet.com/830...44-93.html?tag=nefd.top

STARTS HERE:

EFF: Yahoo Music should compensate customers
Posted by Greg Sandoval
Yahoo Music is telling customers that it won't allow users who bought songs from the service to transfer them to new devices or PCs after September 30.

The announcement on Thursday has stunned the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a watchdog group for Internet users. Surely, Yahoo should have learned something from the MSN debacle. Just a month ago, Microsoft reversed a decision to stop releasing authorization keys for the copy protections it placed on songs, and will issue keys for three more years.

"Some people think they can use music wrapped in digital rights management just like they do a CD," Corynne McSherry, an attorney with EFF, told CNET News. "This should teach everyone that you can't."

To those opposed to DRM, this is but the latest example of how buying copyright-protected music means that a label or music service can come in and snatch it away. Without the DRM keys, an owner is helpless to transfer songs to new devices. An owner can burn songs to a CD, as Yahoo has been telling customers to do for six months, but they then risk losing some sound quality when they rerip the music.

In explaining how Yahoo came to its decision, Michael Spiegelman, Yahoo's senior director of music, argued many of the same points that Microsoft made.

• Microsoft said consumers would benefit by being moved to a new, superior service: Zune's Marketplace. Yahoo is suggesting customers move to RealNetworks' Rhapsody.

• Microsoft said that the issue affects a small number of people. Spiegel used the term "small percentage." (Neither company disclosed exactly how many people would be affected.)

• Microsoft said that copyright protection schemes were forced down its throat by the major recording companies. Yahoo's Spiegelman says the company has realized "the time for DRM-protected tracks has passed."

But here's what is different about Yahoo's decision. While Microsoft chose to delay the eventual withdrawing of support, Yahoo says it decided to deal with it sooner rather than later.

"We definitely tracked the (MSN) situation closely," Spiegelman said. "We found (the decision to continue supporting DRM keys for three more years) just prolongs the pain. It keeps the DRM question going for years. We want to help people make the transition now."

Fine, says EFF. Yahoo has admitted that it made a mistake with DRM. But why is the company making customers pay for its error in judgment?

"This isn't just about withdrawing support," McSherry said. "It's about not compensating customers. This is pretty outrageous."

She called on Yahoo to apologize to customers and either replace their music with open MP3s or issue refunds.

You aren't Foxy under a pseudo by any chance..?

"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."

Copying the music back to your computer is easily done by inserting the audio CD with the backed up music on it and using Windows Media Player to rip it to the computer. Then you will have an mp3 or wma file without the DRM.

I thought that many of the files available from Yahoo did not allow for burning to CD. Is that not the case?

"Copying the music back to your computer is easily done by inserting the audio CD with the backed up music on it and using Windows Media Player to rip it to the computer. Then you will have an mp3 or wma file without the DRM."

He's right. You can burn these files to a CD-RW and rip them to a folder on your desktop. Make sure to turn off the DRM feature in Windows Media Player 9 or 10. It worked just fine for me about 2 years ago. I dunno if you can't disable the DRM settings on the new Media Player 11...

The music service has 2 models. There's a subscription and there's a purchase model. You CANNOT burn music that you've downloaded under subscription, you CAN burn music that you PURCHASE.

So, in essense...there's nothing to see here. I don't know what idiot out there purchases digital music and doesn't burn it to CD or DVD both for backup and to copy it back to whatever device be it PC or mp3 player, without the DRM. You'd have to be a complete fool to not do that.

I don't have Yahoo! Music Store but I'm pretty sure these files are lossy. Burning to CD or even a virtual CD and then ripping to mp3 or wma will just lose quality. You could rip to lossless but then you lose space on your HD. It's a lose lose situation. Contact the California Better Business Bureau.

Yea that is not a solution thats like saying "Oh we are not going to allow CD players anymore but you can record all of your cd's onto cassette tapes and listen to them that way" what a friggen load of bulls***.

"Contact the California Better Business Bureau."

Attorney General, Jerry Brown sounds like a better choice. YAHOO is guilty of THEFT, if people who paid for this music can't listen to it any more. This is no different than a RIAA IDIOT vandalizing old media and rendering it useless...

let me see if I got this right... users who paid for the right to have that music will no longer be able to listen to it?

sorry, but if you buy something it's yours (or in this case, if you buy the right to listen to the music, NOONE can legally keep you from listening to it. ).. that would be like going to a record store and buying a cd and then having to worry at any time that the maker of the cd can make the cd stop playing... tht is theft .. period

Hey remember DIVX?

Hey - good luck in putting a legal team together to challenge them in court.

Too bad it would likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees...

"Too bad it would likely cost hundreds of thousands of dollars in fees..."

That's a pretty ignorant statement to make, what evidence are you basing this cost analysis on?

It's a shame because the current California A.G., who has jurisdiction over the likes of Yahoo and Silicon Valley used to have a good consumer's rights track record, under his title of gov. Jerry Brown almost 30 years ago!!!

Class action litigation can be VERY expensive. :)

Wow - that sincerely sucks. :(

I have a hard time believing that Yahoo can't find some way to "Un-DRM" the files so that people who did purchase them legit can be given the opportunity to either convert or re-download the music so that DRM is removed.

I only just started buying music again - and only via the Amazon.com MP3 store. I waited a long time for just that reason - because I do not and will not pay for anything musical that has DRM.

Man, what a bummer. :(

Of course not, but you can, if you still have the keys that is

DRM is doomed for this very reason.

Only more proof that DRM was never a good idea

DRM is the tool of corporate thieves who were just pretending to stop piracy. Now they are doing the same thing and government is falling down on the job...

You can still purchase your favorite tracks, but if you already bought them you are screwed. What a crock DRM was and now its rearing its ugly head. I feel bad for those who bought DRM tracks before from anyone not just Yahoo.

DRM is the only reason why I boycott the major on line music stores like I-Tunes and Rhapsody. I prefer the artist's own websites many of which don't offer me these encryted downloads. Regular FLAC lossless files are the only ones that I'm gonna pay money for. If the RIAA doesn't like it, eff them...

Caveat emptor

I'd rather share your daughter & wife than muzak.
Thy will most certainly covet thy neighbors spouse, so long thy will permit DRM!
LOL to your family.
Dan

aren't you that ex-congressman who is now the lobbyist and a mouthpiece for the Hollywood studios mafia we call the MPAA?

*laughs*

Now *that* is funny.

Well...coming from you, anyway.