Yahoo to compensate its online music store customers

Customers of the Yahoo Music Unlimited online music store who have purchased Digital Rights Management (DRM) protected downloads will be compensated when the licences for their songs expire after 30th September. The company announced its intention of providing compensation after receiving numerous protests about the closure of its DRM server. However, a company spokesperson said that Yahoo had always intended to provide such compensation and that only a comparatively small number of customers are affected.

As announced in February, Yahoo's entire music store is about to be transferred to Rhapsody, and Yahoo customers have been given the option to migrate. Yahoo Music Unlimited's digital rights management ensures that songs can only be played on an authorised machine. When Yahoo's DRM servers are deactivated on 1st October, customers who have purchased music will not be able to transfer it to a new computer or play it on their existing computer if they install a new operating system. Yahoo Music customers who get their music on subscription are not affected, as they are able to switch to Rhapsody.

Civil liberties campaigners from the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) have criticised Yahoo, particularly over the advice it has given its customers to remove the DRM protection by burning their music onto CD. This would mean investing time, effort and money to retain ownership of music that they have already paid for, says the EFF. EFF has expressed its satisfaction at Yahoo's latest announcement. According to US media reports, Yahoo is exploring other ways of compensating its customers, such as providing a free service to convert DRM-protected songs to non-DRM versions.

Microsoft also attracted protests when it announced its intention of closing its DRM servers on 31st August 2008. The Redmond software giant subsequently decided to keep its servers running until 2011 and, as a result, the EFF has not demanded that Microsoft provide compensation or replacement. The view expressed by the news media has been that the extension gives customers what they have paid for.

(trk)