Yahoo Music will be dead as of September 30th when the company is going to shut down its DRM servers. This is another reason why a smart buyer would never buy DRM protected songs. Digital rights management technologies are a failure commercially and technically. There are too many standards which are not interoperable, they restrict the customer's freedom to high degrees and they are an everyday nuisance to work with. In cases like this, when the company cancels the service, you are left out in the open.

After September 30th music will continue to play, but reinstalling the operating system or making other changes that erase the licenses stored on the user's computer will render the songs unplayable forever. Yahoo promised to "take care" of their customers, by refunding the money paid for these DRM-protected songs or by providing DRM free versions which would be free from any restrictions, depending on the individual choice.

The only way to still use the files is to burn them to an Audio CD. This, of course, would not have been an issue if Yahoo would have seen the light and pursued a DRM-free approach as did its rivals which include Amazon.com, RealNetworks and Napster.

In February, the company announced it is selling its digital music subscription service, Yahoo Music Unlimited, to Rhapsody America. Rhapsody is a partnership of Real Networks and MTV Networks.

Similarly, Microsoft’s MSN Music service will be dead and buried as of August 31, when the company will stop issuing DRM keys, a company statement unveiled in April. The MSN Music Store was officially launched in September 2004, but it never managed to become as big as Apple’s iTunes Store, which meant an inevitable announcement two years later: the service stopped selling downloads, redirecting customers to Zune or Real Rhapsody.