The Yahoo Music site has been set up to offer various music options for music lovers. You can for example, buy single or multiple audio downloads, listen to a vast range of radio stations and watch music videos. This is a site that likes its music and showcases it well!
You have two primary options with the Yahoo Music service:
Yahoo! Music Engine
This is Yahoo’s music player. You can download the software for free and then use it to listen to music or to access the store where you can buy your downloads as you like. Downloads are priced at a competitive $0.99 per track across the board here.If you download this service you’ll have access to over 30 radio stations and you can use the music you purchase to burn CDs. The software will also let you create playlists and rip music generally.
You can also hook up with other Yahoo members to discover new music by accessing their collections through Messenger. This particular service doesn’t permit copying or transfer – it’s a streaming service only.
Yahoo! Music Unlimited
This service gives you all the advantages of the Music Engine with a lot of added extras. For example, you get access to over 120 radio stations here and buying music tracks here only costs $0.79.This is a subscription service – for a low monthly fee you get access to over a million songs on your computer to listen to on an unlimited basis. You can also transfer as much music as you like from the catalog to a range of portable players as often as you like.
You need to be aware that the subscription service on offer is only valid for as long as you subscribe. So, if you stop subscribing you will lose access to the free catalog of tracks you can listen to and you will not be able to listen to tracks you transferred to your portable player any more.
This kind of subscription service is also relatively new and works hard to protect digital rights management (DRM) issues. So, you can only transfer music to a portable device such as an MP3 player that is compatible with the service. Newer portable players may well have the right kind of DRM rights but older models probably won’t work for you here.
The subscription service for Yahoo Music will not, for example, work with an iPod at all as this service uses rights-protected WMAs which are not compatible with the iPod. You may find, however, that the basic Music Engine software will work with an iPod – but not with an iPod Shuffle. You may also have problems with the subscription service if your operating system is old as it has been set up to work with Windows XP and 2000.
The Digital Rights Management issues may also have an impact on what you can do with music you buy here. Tracks on this service will be rights encoded so you will probably find that limits will be set on your use of them. For example, you can only burn a track to CD 7 times before you have used up all your ‘rights’. If you want to carry on burning then you’ll have to look at re-purchasing the track.
A good tip to note if you are very keen to access the subscription service here is to check the manufacturer of your portable player to see if they have or are planning to add a firmware upgrade which will give your player access. There is a list of compatible players on site which you can also check.
If you’re an iPod user and you’re desperate to use the store here then some users report that you can burn WMAs to CD and then have iTunes convert them for you so this might be a workable alternative.
Also see legal MP3 downloads .