What's New: Yahoo! To Kill Off Music

Yahoo! announced that it will shut down its online music store as of September 30, and users will not be able to retrieve license keys for purchased music after that date. Yahoo! says music will play on existing authorized PCs, but users who move to a new PC will not be able to play their music. Instead, Yahoo! suggests users burn all music to CDs and then re-upload to a new Rhapsody account (Yahoo!'s new music partner).

Microsoft's similar announcement earlier this summer generated such feedback that Microsoft delayed the shutdown of their music license servers until the end of 2011.

Update: Yahoo! now says they will offer refunds to people who purchased individual tracks from Yahoo Music, and would lose access to that music in September. A spokeswoman says that "very few people actually purchased" individual tracks from Yahoo Music.

Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008 12:00 pm CDT

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