Yahoo Online Music Service

[TheMonarch]

GO YAHOO!... Kill Napster!

I don't do subscription though...

But at least it will put an end to those awful napster commercials. So in a way, yahoo is doing us all a favor by undercutting them so severely (50%, ouch!)

Yahoo is very competitive, they might be able to pull this off. Just look what they're doing to compete with Gmail.

 

[alandail]

And these restrictions are easily, and legally circumvented by burning the tracks to a CD - which is expressly permitted by Apple's DRM terms. Once the CD is burned, your rights with respect to that CD are the same as those from a purchased CD - including the right to rip the tracks into a computer, make duplicates, etc..

No they are not - you are still bound by the DRM license of the original purchase - it expressly allows you to burn it to CD, but doing so does not make it legal to rip that song back into the computer, thus circumventing the original DRM. You are bound by the terms of the DRM license, and I believe that the language of the license allows burning a CD, but prohibits ripping that CD back into a computer. I know MS's license has this language and i would guess Apple's does as well.

It's easy to do, but it's not legal.

 

[alandail]

here, I found it - this is in the agreement to buy songs from the iTunes store

Any burning or exporting capabilities are solely an accommodation to you and shall not constitute a grant or waiver (or other limitation or implication) of any rights of the copyright owners of any content, sound recording, underlying musical composition or artwork embodied in any Product.

MS has similar language in their DRM - in both cases, they clearly state that allowing you to burn a CD does not authorize you to rip the CD back in, thus circumventing the DRM.

The thing is, they could impose the same licensing restrictions without DRM, as could competitors - and doing so would let competitors downloads run on an iPod.

 

[MontyZ]

Why all the hate towards Napster?

They really kind of got this whole digital music revolution started. I give them props for that. Yahoo is a johnny-come-lately.

 

[bit density]

I had to think hard as to whether this is really worth a post or not.

Yet another subscription service. Yawn.

With each new subscription service not only do iTMS sales keep rising, but suprisingly so does the market share. These services seem to have no impact at all on iTMS, they just share out the non iTMS market even thinner between them.

It just makes more and more sense for Apple not to license their DRM.

The point at which I thought it was worth making a post, came when I thought about the record labels part in all this. They continually crib about Apple dominating the pricing structure, then seem to sell themselves cheap with these subscription services, I have to wonder how they make money from it, or any reasonable amount of money anyway.

Rant coming on............

I really have no interest in subsrciption services, forget what happens when I drop my subscription, that's my choice. My worry would be, what happens when the subscription service goes bust (and many will) or if I want to change my platform (and many are starting to do this) or my PC (not as though I have one or want one) is so old I can't run the new OS (ha ha) and hence I can't run the required updated jukebox needed to still play my music.

Well actually these wouldn't be my worries at all, because I simply want to own my music, even if I was guaranteed the subscription service would go on for ever, I wouldn't be interested. I can do more or less what I want with my music and that's how I like it, I can even leave my music collection to my children when I'm gone.

End of rant.................

So having no interest, I don't know a lot about them, perhaps someone will tell me how it goes with Top 20 stuff, are they still available on subscription. If so, it seems a fairly poor deal for the artist who ordinarily has but a few weeks to sell as many copies of his tune as he can, before they drift into obscurity (often forever).

Maybe someone will answer this for me, since understanding this was the perhaps the only objective I could think of when I decided to post about what to me has really become a very boring subject (another subscription service)

First off, and this is for everyone that seems to be not getting this. NOBODY IS MAKING YOU NOT OWN YOUR OWN MUSIC! Who cares if you are going to continue buying music or not.

This is NOT an either/or kinda thing. This is an *ADDITIONAL* thing. Like I said before, I *own* a lot of music. Do I own *everything* I want to listen to. Nope...

Who cares if they shut it off. Then it doesn't exist anymore and you don't have to pay for it. It wasn't yours. And you can always go buy it if you want.

The key to understanding the business model is understanding the average customer monthly purchase and the effect that credit card charges have. 6.95 or 60 dollars annually provides a much thicker profit slice than a $1.00 credit card charge.

From the RIAA side, "buying" music vs. "renting" music means nil difference to them. *ALL* that matters is the income stream.

This will not prevent me from buying CD's. But *will* expose me to a much larger world of music. And all for a *MEASLY* 5 bucks a month.

I think that Apple will have a problem, because I am pretty sure that fairplay and the IPOD is not set up to support this model. The DRM is wrapped on the client (itunes). And each IPOD does ZERO DRM checking. It is not engineered in. And the reason they may have the problem... The rental model may be attractive enough that I may switch away from an iPod and all that cool, for a greater feature set/A cheaper price/and more choice in how I want to spend money on my music experience. And Apple and all its cool may not be able to keep me in the end. I might keep my white headphones just so people think I am still cool.

 

[Doctor Q]

Let's think ahead: What company will be next to the market, undercutting Yahoo with an even cheaper subscription service?

Apple can stay above the fray with for-sale-only music, announcing an ever increasing library size and international presence, while there is a bloodbath in the subscription business.

 

[giba]

Why all the hate towards Napster?

They really kind of got this whole digital music revolution started. I give them props for that. Yahoo is a johnny-come-lately.

Well, the Napster now is not the Napster that was yesterday. It's owned by a completely different company now.

 

[granex]

- the $60/year is apparently an introductory price. What will the price be a year from now? Let's be conservative and say it bumps up to $100. Subscribe for 20 years and you've spent $2000 and have absolutely no music to show for it unless you keep subscribing.

I general, I think that this is a great development. $60/year is not too much for what the service gets you -- on top of buying the music you want. But if people rely on this for their whole music collection, then they are going to be very susceptible to bait and switch pricing.

This is the business advantage of being first to offer. If people are tied in and feel that they will "lose" their music if they don't stay with the same company, then that company has hooked a bunch of zombies. This would be easy to solve by providing a migration path in which play lists established for one service can be converted to another service. Since you really only own the idea of which songs you want to have, this should actually be pretty easy in practice.

 

[alandail]

I general, I think that this is a great development. $60/year is not too much for what the service gets you -- on top of buying the music you want. But if people rely on this for their whole music collection, then they are going to be very susceptible to bait and switch pricing.

This is the business advantage of being first to offer. If people are tied in and feel that they will "lose" their music if they don't stay with the same company, then that company has hooked a bunch of zombies. This would be easy to solve by providing a migration path in which play lists established for one service can be converted to another service. Since you really only own the idea of which songs you want to have, this should actually be pretty easy in practice.

except no two services have the same collection of songs. And nobody is going to set something up to help you leave their service.

 

[MontyZ]

Well, the Napster now is not the Napster that was yesterday. It's owned by a completely different company now.

Okay. But, I dislike Yahoo even more. Their search engine suks.

 

[Doctor Q]

I read an article about the music subscription model this morning. It made a good point, that people subscribe to cable TV and watch what's on, from a vast catalog of movies and other shows, as long as they are a subscriber. Once they give up their subscription, they lose access to all that content (except individual shows they might have saved) and nobody expects it to be otherwise.

Subscription music is the same idea, except that people expect otherwise. That's a mindset that might be overcome by marketing, convincing people that what's good enough for cable TV is good enough for music. In fact, digital cable service often includes a variety of music-only channels, so a Yahoo-style music subscription service is yet another instance of that model.

 

[shamino]

here, I found it - this is in the agreement to buy songs from the iTunes store

Any burning or exporting capabilities are solely an accommodation to you and shall not constitute a grant or waiver (or other limitation or implication) of any rights of the copyright owners of any content, sound recording, underlying musical composition or artwork embodied in any Product.

MS has similar language in their DRM - in both cases, they clearly state that allowing you to burn a CD does not authorize you to rip the CD back in, thus circumventing the DRM.

That's not what that quote says.

That line says that you do not become the copyright holder of the song. Which is no different from a purchased CD. It does not, in any way, negate your fair-use rights, as defined by US copyright law.

DRM schemes, no matter how many lawyers sign off on them, do not take away your fair-use rights (although the DMCA prohibits you from hacking them).

 

[iPost]

>> So, you don't own anything when buying songs from iTunes. You are licensing them.

I hear this argument all the time, and I don't think it is accurate.

It sure is accurate. Just try selling the songs that you bought from iTunes. If you really owned them, you'd be able to sell them (just like you can legally sell your used CDs). You are not allowed to re-sell your iTunes songs. You don't own iTunes songs themselves... if you own anything, it's a non-transferable license to them... and you are subject to the terms of the license.

 

[iPost]

Why all the hate towards Napster?

They really kind of got this whole digital music revolution started. I give them props for that. Yahoo is a johnny-come-lately.

Hmmm... except that Yahoo bought Musicmatch, who was in the game even before Apple and Napster. If it wasn't for early products like Musicmatch, Rio, Winamp, Napster, MP3.com... would Apple have even thought of iTunes and the iPod? Musicmatch was the first to produce a product that offered the idea of a music library on your computer and transferring to a portable player (the iTunes library borrows from that idea). Rio was the first to offer a portable MP3 player. MP3.com was one of the first to offer streaming and downloads.

I still have the Rio 300 that I purchased back in 1998 (which came with Musicmatch on a CD). And, I can tell you, during that time, the Mac platform was NOWHERE when it came to digital music, which was very frustrating. It's actually the reason I bought a new PC back then... to move to digital music.

Steve Jobs did a great job in picking up on the digital music trend and building a very good and popular product around it. But Apple was the one moving into existing markets and taking over. How can you fault other companies for wanting to do the same? (Yes, this is MacRumors, I know you can and will 😉

By the way, I just checked out the Yahoo service. The 79 cent downloads are actually 192 kbps files! They sound awesome! Why is Apple still selling 128 kbps files for 99 cents? The Yahoo music files offer 50% greater sonic resolution than what Apple is selling. I'm surprised we haven't heard more about this in the press.

All-in-all I think this is good for everyone. Apple needed a little push to get beyond selling those 128 kbps tracks and offering more ways to listen to music. Maybe this will do it.

Of course, the Beatles might just come in and take over everything anyway. They certainly own the name Apple when applied to music, and I believe that I've heard Yoko Ono scream "Yahoo" a couple of times during the Let It Be recording sessions, so maybe they can stake a copyright claim there too. 😉

 

[shamino]

It sure is accurate. Just try selling the songs that you bought from iTunes. If you really owned them, you'd be able to sell them (just like you can legally sell your used CDs).

It should be noted that in the recent past, the RIAA was claiming that you weren't allowed to sell used CDs. Fortunately, nobody listened to them and I don't think they've been able to pay off enough Congressmen to get the law changed.

Don't believe everything you read when trying to figure out what your rights are.

You are not allowed to re-sell your iTunes songs. You don't own iTunes songs themselves... if you own anything, it's a non-transferable license to them... and you are subject to the terms of the license.

Copyright law allows you to resell the songs. You can resell downloaded content just like you can resell purchased software.

The DRM makes them unplayable on anyone else's computer, but this has nothing to do with copyright law. Yes, the DMCA makes it illegal to break the DRM, but the DMCA does not take away your right to resell your purchases.

 

[iPost]

First off, and this is for everyone that seems to be not getting this. NOBODY IS MAKING YOU NOT OWN YOUR OWN MUSIC!

This will not prevent me from buying CD's. But *will* expose me to a much larger world of music. And all for a *MEASLY* 5 bucks a month.

Very well put!!!

I have memories of when I was a teenager, working at a minimum wage job, and walking into a record store. There I found so many bands and singers that I wanted to listen to... old stuff... new stuff... to expand my musical horizons and figure out what I liked (I wonder if I would like jazz, or blues, or classical guitar, ...)

But becaue I only had $6 in my pocket, I could only walk out of the store with one album, and maybe a 45.

I would have done anything for the chance to listen to it all for only $5 a month!

Kids today have it made! (I also had to walk five miles to get to that record store... in a foot of snow... up-hill... both ways! We didn't have any of this fancy mouse clicking back then!)

 

[alandail]

That's not what that quote says.

That line says that you do not become the copyright holder of the song. Which is no different from a purchased CD. It does not, in any way, negate your fair-use rights, as defined by US copyright law.

DRM schemes, no matter how many lawyers sign off on them, do not take away your fair-use rights (although the DMCA prohibits you from hacking them).

no, you didn't buy the CD, you bought DRM protected content, and the line says that letting you burn the song to CD doesn't release you from the license restrictions the DRM otherwise imposes. And the DMCA is quite clear about the limitations imposed on DRM protected content.

 

[shamino]

no, you didn't buy the CD, you bought DRM protected content, and the line says that letting you burn the song to CD doesn't release you from the license restrictions the DRM otherwise imposes. And the DMCA is quite clear about the limitations imposed on DRM protected content.

DRM is a technical measure used to impose restrictions that may or may not be supported by law.

The DMCA doesn't state that shrink-wrap or click-through licenses are binding. You are thinking of the UCITA - a completely different law, which only exists in two states.

Please read the text of the DMCA instead of listening to rumors.

It ammends the US Code (which I've already posted links to) such that:

• Circumventing copy-protection schemes (encryption, DRM, etc.) is prohibited
• Altering/removing digital copyright notices is prohibited
• Software/tools/devices designed for circumventing copy-protection or altering copyright notice may not be developed or distributed.
• Penalties for violation are updated

It should be noted that the links I provided to the US code include all the DMCA-specified updates.

Nothing there says anything about DRM terms being binding in lieu of the rest of the law. Nothing in there says that clicking "I Agree" when you install iTunes makes you legally bound by the text you clicked under (but the UCITA binds you to that if you live in MD or VA.)

As long as you don't break the DRM, what you're allowed to do with the music you download is no different from what you're allowed to do with music from any other source.

If you think I've missed something in the DMCA, please point out the section that proves me wrong.

 

[shamino]

It ammends the US Code (which I've already posted links to)

Sorry. I posted that in a different discussion thread. Here they are:

Here's a summary of the key issues.

Section 106 of the copyright act is what gives copyright holders the right to make duplicates.

Fair use is defined in section 107 which allows duplication for some specific purposes, including news reporting, commentary, criticism and teaching.

Section 108 allows libraries to make archival copies.

Section 117 allows you to make backup copies of software (but not music.)

Left to just this, you might get the impression that you're not allowed to copy your own CDs or make a mix-tape for the car. However, the Audio Home Recording Act says in section 1008 (emphasis mine):

No action may be brought under this title alleging infringement of copyright based on the manufacture, importation, or distribution of a digital audio recording device, a digital audio recording medium, an analog recording device, or an analog recording medium, or based on the noncommercial use by a consumer of such a device or medium for making digital musical recordings or analog musical recordings.

Meaning that you can not be prosecuted for making copies of music for personal use. The law does not distinguish between analog, digital or download media.

 

[fatfish]

First off, and this is for everyone that seems to be not getting this. NOBODY IS MAKING YOU NOT OWN YOUR OWN MUSIC! Who cares if you are going to continue buying music or not.

This is NOT an either/or kinda thing. This is an *ADDITIONAL* thing. Like I said before, I *own* a lot of music. Do I own *everything* I want to listen to. Nope...

Who cares if they shut it off. Then it doesn't exist anymore and you don't have to pay for it. It wasn't yours. And you can always go buy it if you want.

The key to understanding the business model is understanding the average customer monthly purchase and the effect that credit card charges have. 6.95 or 60 dollars annually provides a much thicker profit slice than a $1.00 credit card charge.

From the RIAA side, "buying" music vs. "renting" music means nil difference to them. *ALL* that matters is the income stream.

This will not prevent me from buying CD's. But *will* expose me to a much larger world of music. And all for a *MEASLY* 5 bucks a month.

I think that Apple will have a problem, because I am pretty sure that fairplay and the IPOD is not set up to support this model. The DRM is wrapped on the client (itunes). And each IPOD does ZERO DRM checking. It is not engineered in. And the reason they may have the problem... The rental model may be attractive enough that I may switch away from an iPod and all that cool, for a greater feature set/A cheaper price/and more choice in how I want to spend money on my music experience. And Apple and all its cool may not be able to keep me in the end. I might keep my white headphones just so people think I am still cool.

My actual point was I don't think it will have very much impact on Apple. Yes I had a rant about owning my music, but that's what I want, each to his own and all that, the fact that you prefer to rent or a mixture of both actually doesn't make much difference and rather supports my point. I prefer to buy, I will continue to use ITMS, those that prefer to rent can't use Apple anyway, so those that are going to rent from Yahoo are going to stop using someone else, but it won't be apple because they didn't use them in the first place.

As for not caring whether you lose your music and have to pay for it all over again, I rather suspect you are in a very small minority there, but again each to his own, I'm sure some people enjoy poking themselves in the eye as well.

 

[fatfish]

I read an article about the music subscription model this morning. It made a good point, that people subscribe to cable TV and watch what's on, from a vast catalog of movies and other shows, as long as they are a subscriber. Once they give up their subscription, they lose access to all that content (except individual shows they might have saved) and nobody expects it to be otherwise.

Subscription music is the same idea, except that people expect otherwise. That's a mindset that might be overcome by marketing, convincing people that what's good enough for cable TV is good enough for music. In fact, digital cable service often includes a variety of music-only channels, so a Yahoo-style music subscription service is yet another instance of that model.

Not the same model at all.

People generally watch a show once only. maybe a couple of times if it's a movie. It doesn't matter to them if their subscription stops. That's not the case with music.

Music only channels on cable is another thing all together, it's radio, you don't choose your songs and you can't save 'em and it's also not what you conciously pay your subscription for either.

 

[Doctor Q]

Not the same model at all...

What you say is true if you think of it in the iTMS model - you pick your favorite song at Yahoo, get it once, and listen to it over and over forever as long as you subscribe. You are correct that it doesn't match cable TV's offerings of a dozen or few dozen music channels.

But if you think of one TV channel as one tune, then they are offering the equivalent of a million TV music channels. You pick one, listen to it, and that's that. Next time, you pick something else.

In between those two extremes, imagine that a TV channel is equivalent to a playlist (a feature Yahoo is pushing as a way to share your selections). A playlist might contain the current Top 100 in a certain genre, for example, or the latest album by one artist. You pick a playlist (channel) and listen to it. Tomorrow, you may hear something different on the same playlist, the same way you might watch the same evening news program every night, with content changed daily.

Presented that way, subscription music (with thousands or tens of thousands of playlists) and cable music (which could progress to hundreds of channels) would differ more in quantity than in the model.

All my rambling is intended to make the point that Yahoo and other services could push this idea and its advantages.

If, instead, they continue to assume that people want particular individual songs, they have to convince people either that the service is worth having forever, that paying by the month AND ALSO paying by the tune for downloading is worth it financially, or that their tastes will change over time so they wouldn't really want to keep their "old" music anyway.

 

[fatfish]

What you say is true if you think of it in the iTMS model - you pick your favorite song at Yahoo, get it once, and listen to it over and over forever as long as you subscribe. You are correct that it doesn't match cable TV's offerings of a dozen or few dozen music channels.

But if you think of one TV channel as one tune, then they are offering the equivalent of a million TV music channels. You pick one, listen to it, and that's that. Next time, you pick something else.

In between those two extremes, imagine that a TV channel is equivalent to a playlist (a feature Yahoo is pushing as a way to share your selections). A playlist might contain the current Top 100 in a certain genre, for example, or the latest album by one artist. You pick a playlist (channel) and listen to it. Tomorrow, you may hear something different on the same playlist, the same way you might watch the same evening news program every night, with content changed daily.

Presented that way, subscription music (with thousands or tens of thousands of playlists) and cable music (which could progress to hundreds of channels) would differ more in quantity than in the model.

All my rambling is intended to make the point that Yahoo and other services could push this idea and its advantages.

If, instead, they continue to assume that people want particular individual songs, they have to convince people either that the service is worth having forever, that paying by the month AND ALSO paying by the tune for downloading is worth it financially, or that their tastes will change over time so they wouldn't really want to keep their "old" music anyway.

I see the point your making, sort of an on demand radio station, but I think the model falls down when you consider the d/l times and storage iisues.
For the majority of people with DSL it still takes longer to d/l a song than to listen to it, and even if it didn't you'd spend all your time choosing and listening, rather than just listening and getting on with your work.

But yes I see your point even if it's not for me.

 

[Nermal]

For the majority of people with DSL it still takes longer to d/l a song than to listen to it

Huh? Apple encodes songs at 128 kb/s, and presumably Yahoo etc use a similar rate. That means that you can listen to the song in real time if your connection is 128 kb/s or faster. The vast majority of DSL connections are faster than this.

 

[fatfish]

Huh? Apple encodes songs at 128 kb/s, and presumably Yahoo etc use a similar rate. That means that you can listen to the song in real time if your connection is 128 kb/s or faster. The vast majority of DSL connections are faster than this.

ugh ugggh. wrong answer try again.

It doesn't work like that. 512 Kb connection probably gives most users about 55 KBps d/l speed and that's max, during the d/l it might drift to less than half of that and that's presuming the server isn't all that busy.