Yahoo Music Shutting Down, Users Going to Real

Tech.Luver sends in word of Yahoo's decision to exit the subscription music business. Yahoo's current subscribers — the company doesn't disclose how many it has — will be switched over to Real's Rhapsody service, and Yahoo will promote Real on its site. Yahoo had priced its subscription service significantly below Real's: $5.99 a month (if users pay a year in advance), vs. Rhapsody memberships at $12.99 a month and up. The Mercury News wonders how the Yahoo-Real deal would fare if Microsoft takes over — not well, the betting goes.

RealPlayer

[misleb (129952)]

Does that mean users would be forced to use the abomination that is RealPlayer? All I can say is "Haha!"

Re:

[numbsafari (139135)]

I refuse to use any site that requires RealPlayer... Hence I don't use Amazon's song sampling...

I hate RealPlayer.

It would actually be a great thing for MS to take over Yahoo if only to help prevent the further spread of the virus that is RealPlayer.

Re:RealPlayer

[mrxak (727974)]

As much as I agree with you about RealPlayer being utterly evil, I still prefer the unstable tripod of Google-Microsoft-Yahoo to the cold war deadlock Google-Microsoft.

Re:

[Captain Splendid (673276)]

Are there any (major) sites still using Real as their video delivery of choice? They were on the ropes even before Flash video became all the rage, so I can only assume they have a couple of juicy patents that keep from being buried outright.

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[Safety Cap (253500)]

Are there any (major) sites still using Real as their video delivery of choice?

Unfortunately, yes: cartalk [cartalk.com].

Re:

[TheLink (130905)]

I believe BBC does use Real player.

Re:

[globaljustin (574257)]

Sometimes I wonder if anyone uses realplayer anymore. I haven't given it a second thought since around '97 when I briefly used it before a buddy in the dorm showed me winamp (which I still use). The pop ups, adware, spyware, and invasiveness took such effort to use.

The true number of people who use it must be miniscule. Why would anyone ever use it?

Re:RealPlayer

[Billly Gates (198444)]

Real player no longer sucks and its the only player on Linux that has correct color calibration and brightness on my laptops.

IT no longer has spyware and adware but the reputation quite damned it. Its quite slim now and fast since the company went in a different direction a few years ago. ... no I dont use it anymore on Windows and prefer Itunes. Raphsody requires real player so some people still use it. My wife has it on her computer but she rarely uses it anymore.

Re:

[TubeSteak (669689)]

http://www.google.com/search?q=real+alternative [google.com]

I have it installed for when I run across the stray RealAudio or RealVideo file... but I can't recall the last time I did so on purpose.

I have checked out RealMedia Variable Bitrate [wikipedia.org] and I was very surprised how good the quality was compared to the shiatty RealVideo from days past.

Re:RealPlayer

[The Orange Mage (1057436)]

I would have loved to read your post, but I waited five minutes for it to buffer and I got bored...

Re:

[owlnation (858981)]

This may be true. However, it's far too late. Real were far, far too evil to ever be fully redeemed. Microsoft look like the Pirate Bay compared to Real at the height of their Shadow.

I am surprised about this move in some ways. Mainly because I'd forgotten about Real. I assumed they went out of business, as I've not seen any reference to them for at least two years. Certainly, I'd like to think they went out of business. I, for one, will never use their player again. Once bitten...

I'd trust Real as fa

Re:RealPlayer

[Symbha (679466)]

Not true...
Rhapsody requires the Rhapsody client, or the Rhapsody web plugin... but does not use Real Player.

I'm sure it uses the same tech...
However, I'm a Rhapsody subscriber, but I too refuse to install the Real Player.

Re:

[sremick (91371)]

Agreed. RealPlayer works just great on my FreeBSD desktop. I don't mind it at all.

I'm happy they've cleaned up their player and are giving attention to people beyond Windows and Mac. I'd miss RealPlayer if it were to vanish, because goodness knows there'll never be a "Windows Media Player" for FreeBSD or Linux. Heh.

That said... RealPlayer is hardly my sole or even primary media player. ;)

Re:RealPlayer

[kcornia (152859)]

Some of those of us who are willing to give people/things a second chance have been pleasantly surprised with current incarnations of RealPlayer. It is non-adware, non-spyware, light on the CPU, and Rhapsody is AWESOME.

I've bought five or six albums in the past few months, several from artists I'd never have listened to (Daft Punk, Modest Mouse, Big Audio Dynamite to name a few) if not for Rhapsody including them in custom channels that I built. Granted I'm buying the CDs because Infiniti SUCKS and can't play home grown CDs in their player without it breaking and they don't have an input jack, but the point is I'm getting exposed to a bunch of new music for the first time in years thanks to Rhapsody.

I actually feel bad for them for having to pay such a high price for their early bad decisions. I mean, I shit-canned them back in the late 90's when they pulled those stunts, but they've matured a lot, and are one of the most complete players out there (although .mov files have quit working on them recently).

I encourage those of you who still have bad memories of Real to read up on the changes and perhaps give them another shot. Rhapsody really is kick ass. I'm sitting here listening to my Sansa player that has 4GB of music that I don't own and loving every minute of it.

I even take it out when I run now, even though I still have to cart the iPod Nano for the running shoes/chip combo.

Re:RealPlayer

[Seor Jojoba (519752)]

I love Rhapsody. It has its problems, like forcing you to too frequently upgrade the software, but the basic subscription idea is great, and Rhapsody has a very good selection. You can pretty much just put in any artist, obscure or famous, and 19 times out of 20, their music pops up ready to listen to.

The reason that the pay subscription model is not insanely popular is probably because it is competing against the "free subscription" model, where you get all the same music, but for free. Who is offering that? Millions of torrent clients, spread across the internet. For myself, I guess I'll just be a chump and pay twelve bucks a month for all the music I could ever want and then some.

Re:

[webmaster404 (1148909)]

The reason that the pay subscription model is not insanely popular is probably because it is competing against the "free subscription" model, where you get all the same music, but for free.

Not to mention its DRMed and may not work on your devices. When someone offers a subscription model DRM free service that works on Windows/Linux/Mac in whatever encoding you want FLAC/MP3/OGG I will sign up until then its again the "pirates" offer a better product on more then just price and if this continues I don't see how digital music will survive.

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[Lumpy (12016)]

Pay subscriptions suck because when you quit paying all your music explodes.

I prefer the Amazon.com mp3 model.. no drm 256Kbps VBR mp3's. I have purchased at least 30 albums from them and a crapload of singles as well. It's great they work on my car stereo, audiotron, Lansonic DAS950, basically everything. and they cant take my music from me when they want to.

Re:RealPlayer

[kcornia (152859)]

This argument always fascinates me. The same is true of your cable TV, but I don't see constant bitching about the cable pay model. The music goes away if you stop paying because you're paying for a SERVICE, not for the music. If you want to pay for the music, then Amazon/iTunes is all there for you. But to buy just what I have in my sansa right now you'd be paying about 5-10 years worth of rhapsody monthly fees. Do you think you'll still want all that music that far in the future? I know I don't listen to many of my old CDs, so Rhapsody is great value for me.

And as far as the comment above this, you're asking the company to let you download whatever you want, whenever you want, as much as you want, in any bitrate/codec you want, on the HONOR system, the promise that you won't download it and then stop paying and share it with your friends?

DRM for music that you guy is lame, I agree. But DRM for music that you buy as a service makes total sense and I have no problem with it. Sure it would be nice if they could all agree so I didn't have to have both a Nano and a Sansa player. But Sansa players are 40 bucks and its plug and play from there so I'm not losing sleep over it.

Re:RealPlayer

[Skynyrd (25155)]

This argument always fascinates me. The same is true of your cable TV, but I don't see constant bitching about the cable pay model. The music goes away if you stop paying because you're paying for a SERVICE, not for the music. If you want to pay for the music, then Amazon/iTunes is all there for you. But to buy just what I have in my sansa right now you'd be paying about 5-10 years worth of rhapsody monthly fees. Do you think you'll still want all that music that far in the future? I know I don't listen to many of my old CDs, so Rhapsody is great value for me.

Yeah, but that argument doesn't hold water at all. Video is generally watched once or twice (with some exceptions) where music is listened to repeatedly. I want to rent video (because it's so much cheaper per viewing) and buy music (because I keep it and listen to it over and over, for years).

I can play MP3s in my living room (HTPC), bedroom (PC), truck (MP3 player/CD player), car (iPod + tape deck), motorcycle (cell phone + earbud) at work (thumb drive in my PC + speakers or iPod + speakers/earbuds) and on and on... I just don't have that flexibility with rental music. I'm also not interested in the "band of the week". I tend to listen to music for years, so renting doesn't do it for me. I guess if I was 15 again and listened to whatever the radio told me to, I'd rent.

My music collection is about 1,000 albums, and I've been buying CDs for 20 years (records for a few years before that).

If renting works for you, that's great. But the music/video comparison doesn't really work.

Re:

[Skynyrd (25155)]

I actually feel bad for them for having to pay such a high price for their early bad decisions. I mean, I shit-canned them back in the late 90's when they pulled those stunts, but they've matured a lot, and are one of the most complete players out there (although .mov files have quit working on them recently).

I'm glad they are paying the price, if for no other reason to serve as an example.

They screwed the pooch - over and over again. They justifiably lost marketshare and honor and I sincerely hope that the

Re:

[kcornia (152859)]

I saw that, and although the blog that was linked on Digg badly mis characterized the issues, those are issues. But the more important note to me is that practically as soon as it was published Real said they would address both. That to me is a good example of the new model they employ, as opposed to the old model of deny and/or ignore.

And as far as the songs being removed, I doubt that's Real, it's more likely a result of a dispute between the artist and the label. Otherwise you'd see entire label's cat

Re:

[toadlife (301863)]

'97 when I briefly used it before a buddy in the dorm showed me winamp

I call BS on your post. I was an early user of WinAMP, as I was one of the several thousand or so people on the planet who new what an mp3 even was in 1997.

In 1997, WinAMP was a barely functional audio player that only played Mp2, MP3 and (I think?) uncompressed PCM audio files, whereas Real Player pretty much only played real media files, and maybe uncompressed PCM (wav/aif) files. Real Player most certainly didn't play MP3 files in 1997.

AFAIK, "Winplay", a really crappy shareware app from Fraunhofer and

Re:

[globaljustin (574257)]

i forgot this was slashdot and people have egos about when they adopted software...sorry...don't get your panties in a twist

wow...you're calling BS on 10+ year old memories...details are hazy...however, in '97 my campus was one of the first to have campus wide ethernet in every dorm room with good computers provided, so I wouldn't be surprised if I was a fairly early adopter of winamp, i may have heard about it through one of the computer science majors or something...

so, the /. version of my mp3 player his

Re:

[hairyfeet (841228)]

You want a great free music player that has wicked features try Musikcube [musikcube.com]. The dynamic playlists and built in SQL backend ROCKS! I used to not touch anything but winamp, and then stumbled onto this thanks to shell extension city. The SQL backend makes it wicked fast for updating tags and files and if you prefer a winamp interface they have a plugin that'll give it to you. It is also licensed under BSD and they welcome input from the community. A really nice player from a really nice bunch of guys. It is for

Re:

[EtherAlchemist (789180)]

Rhapsody doesn't use the RealPlayer. It also works on the Mac and Linux.

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[szyzyg (7313)]

Well it turns out that if you use yahoo's player then you've got an active-X control that's being actively exploited by drive by downloaders
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/02/05/yahoo_jukebox_vuln/ [theregister.co.uk]

So, right now realplayer is a preferable alternative.

MS + Yahoo, Formula For Success

[by Anonymous Coward]

There has to be some Ballmer PowerPoint slide somewhere deep inside Microsoft that looks like this:

1. Throw billions at fading dot com era giant in hopes to replace their own basket case of an online search and content efforts

2. ???

3. Profit!

Yahoo right now must be feeling like someone sitting at the side of the road with their car broken down and someone else with a broken down car comes up to them and offers them 40 billion to buy their car off them because they really need a lift...

Re:

[mrxak (727974)]

Heh, I do think you're right. Microsoft buying out Yahoo really does seem desperate to me. I wouldn't mind if both companies ended up sinking each other, but then it would be far less interesting without all three search companies constantly fighting each other.

That sucks

[DogDude (805747)]

As a long time user of Yahoo's "Launch" subscription music service, I think that sucks. Launch isn't perfect, but it's pretty darn good, and I've been happy to pay the $36/year for no ads and better sound quality. That being said, I won't install anything from Real Networks onto any of our machines, so it looks like I'm on the lookout for a replacement that's as good and as cheap as Launchcast. Shit.

Re:That sucks

[darkhitman (939662)]

Well, if you're looking for a replacement, I've tried out two streaming music sites recently that are pretty good:

http://www.imeem.com/ [imeem.com] - Like youtube, but for music I guess. It has a lot of good playlists, even for my doom metal tastes.

http://www.pandora.com/ [pandora.com] - Streaming internet radio, dissimilar to imeem in that it randomizes what it will play for you - though it tries to play music similar to what you like/tell it you like through some sort of algorithm. Good for finding new stuff. I found Electric Wizard here.

Re:

[szyzyg (7313)]

Yes with imeem around the only thing that a paid subscription is offering is the ability to download the music to your windows media compatible player.

Of course we all know QTrax is going to provide that feature for free too ;-)

Re:

[szyzyg (7313)]

My mother in law says exactly the same thing about the classical selection, but if you just search for bach or beethoven then there's plenty to listen to.

whats going on with Yahoo

[Brigadier (12956)]

First they ship all there pictures to flicker, then they get rid of there version of myspace 360. Now yahoo music. I understand restructuring but they are doing horrible things to the brand. With the news of msn trying to by them out. If I was an investor I would be bailing out. Without content what do users flock to ?

Forcing badware on users ?

[by Anonymous Coward]

thanks Yahoo! http://www.stopbadware.org/reports/reportdisplay?reportname=realplayer01282008 [stopbadware.org]

Re:

[MobileTatsu-NJG (946591)]

Well, fuck you too, arsehole.

If you'd read that page, you'd clearly see that RealPlayer 11 indeed includes Rhapsody.

RealPlayer comes with the engine that plays Rhapsody music. That is not the Rhapsody client. When you join Rhapsody, you download the Rhapsody Client, not Real Player. Basically what I'm getting at is you still don't know what you're talking about. Worse, you're actually spreading FUD. (Amusingly, you would have gotten this if YOU had read the page you linked to.) You see, Real Player is not forced upon you. You're not even tricked into downloading it like iTunes and Quicktime. (Which is probably wh

I'm confused...

[owlnation (858981)]

So, let me get this straight...

A company, that is dying evermore quickly by the day it seems, is shedding some of its users to another company. One that is, to all intents and purposes, long dead after committing suicide a few years back by installing what was essentially a virus into people's computers.

I think that's pretty much it, isn't it? Yep, still makes no sense.

Subscription DRM services

[nurb432 (527695)]

Yet another example of why you never want to sign up with one. No matter how good the company is, *today*.

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[syousef (465911)]

There are two things for which I've never understood how they can be viable: Bottled water sold for the same price as soft drink, and DRM music. The thing is I'd buy bottled water if I had to in order to survive since we all need water, but why oh why would you buy DRM music when you can get a CD??? No wonder the record companies have become so fat and greedy!

Re:Subscription DRM services

[Carcass666 (539381)]

Actually, my understanding on a subscription deal is that you pay an agreed upon amount of money to have access to a source of music for an agreed upon amount of time. Unless Yahoo is not giving their customers the ability to opt-out of a prolonged subscription (instead of switching to Rhapsody), I don't see how there is any bad faith on their part, or a problem with subscription models in general.

It would be a different story if I purchased a track and the DRM on the file required connection to a back-end server that didn't exist in the future (like Google video). In that case, if I purchased a track, and if I am denied future access to it then I should get a full refund. I agree with you if you're saying that purchasing a track with the potential of being denied access to it later should be avoided.

In Rhapsody's case, you can buy tracks (most of the time) by burning them onto a CD. Some artists are allowing purchase of unencumbered mp3's, nicer yet. Sometimes, artists may pull their music from Rhapsody (like Radiohead, bastards), in which case I can decide to cancel my subscription if it pisses me off enough. At any rate, I am paying a subscription to legitimately listen to music (and maybe get the artist 1/1000th of a penny when I do so). Works well enough for me.

How to monetize -- Yahoo style.

[whoever57 (658626)]

One assumes that Yahoo could have raised prices -- to the same level as Real now charges. However, this would incur quite a lot of displeasure amongst users. This deal will undoubtably incur some displeasure, but, some of that will be directed against Real, not Yahoo.

So, Yahoo presumably has a deal under which it will be able to be compensated for the lost revenue (perhaps even the revenue which could have been gained by increasing prices) without the pain of actually putting up prices. THere may be some upfront cash which may help in a battle aginst Microsoft.

The problem is that the net result is less eyeballs on Yahoo's pages. It's those eyeballs that are Yahoo's value. The long term effect of this may be a net reduction in revenue.

The Big Questions: How do users transfer?

[JoeCommodore (567479)]

I have a friend who uses it pretty regular probably has a 1000 songs he listens to (DRMed - has to check in regularly to keep them alive).

I wonder how it will transfer?
Will it transfer (DRM compatibility)?
Will Real support his devices?
And what songs will he loose access to due to the transfer (from RI contract differences between Cos.)

If they do it right he probably will keep going with them, if they mess it up he probably will leave along with others.

FTC.GOV, anyone

[keraneuology (760918)]

Already lodged my complaint of anti-competitive behavior. They've stopped deals that were less obnoxious than that one....

Sansa Connect

[Maxwell309 (639989)]

I really like my Sansa Connect [amazon.com] WiFi enabled player with the Yahoo Music Unlimited service. I knew there was trouble ahead but I figured it would still work as a regular mp3 player once Yahoo Music Unlimited goes dark. The Sansa Connect runs Linux and uses Mono [linuxdevices.com]. Time to start hacking. A general purpose WiFi internet radio receiver would be cool. You can find Sansa Connects for under $90 as recently as last week and probably less next week.

Not a surprise

[BanjoBob (686644)]

After all the complaints [yahoo.com] by digruntled customers after Yahoo Downgrades MusicMatch Jukebox [slashdot.org] and removed many of the features of that application, failed to get it working 100%, and a host of other problems, one might ask why they just didn't give the customer what they want? That was the return of the MusicMatch Jukebox program the way it was in its last release.

It seems that the music business is in the business of denying customers what they want. Just as the RIAA is seeing drastic declines in music sales because of similar tactics and a blatant refusal to monetize the net, Yahoo! music did the same thing - refusing to satisfy their customers and give them value for their dollar. This is what happens.

One must ask, "why they never learn?" There are better and more value-for-your-dollar options out there. All Yahoo Music had to do was give the consumer value for their dollar.

I like Rhapsody, but I forsee problems...

[Exp315 (851386)]

I wasn't a believer in the music subscription model either, but eventually I tried Rhapsody on a free trial, and I discovered that I like it and I would use it. I think I would even pay the new higher monthly subscription price for it. That is I would if I didn't live in Canada, where I'm not allowed to subscribe to Rhapsody because of the regional licensing schemes of the big music cartels. But Yahoo Unlimited provided service in Canada, so I subscribed to that instead. So now Rhapsody is going to take over Yahoo's music subscription service? So what happens to the Canadian subscribers? The big problem with new service models like this is that they invest a ton of money in getting people to know and accept their model - but then they can't keep it stable long enough for people to get comfortable with it. Why invest your time and effort in understanding the current deal and figuring out if it's workable for you, when they're just going to change it arbitrary next month?

Re:

[Billly Gates (198444)]

My guess is the plan was to redirect consumers to surge for media player at yahoo's site. Or perhaps the company is trying to sell it quickly before ms controls it. Perhaps Yahoo did this to increase their networth so the CEO could make some money before being totally under MS control.

But if I were MS I would just cancel the music subscription service or force them to use Surge.

Re:

[Kozar_The_Malignant (738483)]

>..unless microsoft also plan to buy Real.

Which brings up a couple of questions. Which sucks more, RealPlayer or MediaPlayer? Would some Satanic merging of the two programs become known as The Day That Music Died SP1?

Re:

[Khuffie (818093)]

To answer your question...

...iTunes. It is so slow and buggy on Windows. It's a joke.

Re:

[syousef (465911)]

Would some Satanic merging of the two programs become known as The Day That Music Died SP1?

No, Plays for sure.

Re:crap crap crap

[ScrewMaster (602015)]

I remember when it used to be 55 a year and now its near 70, I am not willing to pay any more. This sucks!

Yes, well ... in a crunch, I guess there's always Gnutella. Pricing is better than most, I understand, even if the quality is somewhat uneven.