How will Yahoo Music work now?

Every time I bring up Yahoo Music I get a message that says.
Important Notice: Yahoo Music Unlimited will become Rhapsody.
I have a Creative Zen and I buy all of my songs individually for .99 cents each. Can I still download songs from Yahoo Music?
I do not want a monthly subscription. I just want to download music. Will this conversion affect me or am I still good?

NO, you are not good! You have 2 concerns: the music you already purchased at 99 cents each, and your interaction with Yahoo Music going forward.

Your most pressing concern should be for the tracks you already purchased. For those, you know that each purchase consists of the music track itself and the license to play it on your devices. After 9/30/08 (or is it 8/31/08? I forget), you will no longer be able to relicense the music. That means that if you want to move your tracks to another device, after the drop-dead date, you won’t be able to because you won’t be able to reacquire the license that allows you to play the music. That is why Yahoo is saying you should burn all your purchased tracks to audio CD format. Once thay are burned as audio CD, you can further manipulate the tracks as you wish. Yes, you will suffer some audio degradation during the conversion. Choose the highest quality conversions you can to minimize that.

You SHOULD be able to continue to play your tracks on your Zen indefinitely. So long as the tracks don’t need to be relicensed, you should be OK. We all know that “stuff happens”. At some point, your Zen will no longer be your music device of choice, for whatever reason. That’s when the current situation with Yahoo Music will affect you critically. Best to act now to protect your investment. Later, you will be SOL if you don’t take action very soon.

Second, after the drop-dead date, Yahoo will be out of the business of selling downloadable music. You will need to find another supplier for that. Fortunately, there are many, including Rhapsody, Apple iTunes, and Amazon.

I don’t know what is going to happen to Yahoo Music Jukebox, the application. I’m kind of assuming that it will go away (i.e., no longer be supported), and at some point it will cease to function. Fortunately, there are many other viable music organizers/players.

How Music Works 2 – Rhythm – Part 1

Comments are closed