Looks as if Yahoo! Music may be having a change of heart with respect to how they treat customers who purchased DRM protected music. The Yahoo! Music store is slated to close on September 30, 2008. After that time owners of digitally protected (DRM) music purchased from Yahoo! will be unable to transfer their songs to other computers or renew DRM licenses because the Yahoo! licensing system will be off-line. Previously Yahoo! had suggested subscribers copy songs to CD then rip them back to their computer – effectively removing the copy protection on the songs. Now InformationWeek in a July 25, 2008 story is quoting Yahoo! spokeswoman Carrie Davis as saying “You’ll be compensated for whatever you paid for the music…we haven’t said exactly what we will do, but we will take care of our customers”. My translation? Raise a big enough stink and you’ll be offered some type of Yahoo! service credit. Complain more and you’ll maybe get a refund.
