At 12/27/2005 03:31 PM, Brian Weeden wrote:
It is nice but there are a couple of downsides to the Yahoo service:
1. You don't own the music, you just rent it. If you ever stop
paying your $120 a year you lose access to every track you have every
downloaded from them. $0.99 a song from iTunes might be more
expensive but you end up with a file that you own. Now if you pay
more for the Yahoo To Go Unlimited I think you can burn them to CDs
but not really sure.
You never own the music, you own a right to play the music. In ten years
all media will be rental most likely and making a copy will be outlawed
totally by then. I don't own the tv shows I rent them via cable. What is
the difference? I am not expecting prices to go up on this type of service
just down with more capabilities as time goes by. Oh, and why would I need
to burn it to a cd? My mp3 player goes everywhere with me and hooks up to
anything or just use the transmitter.
2. Windows only, so Mac or Linux users are you are screwed. This is
because it uses Windows Media Player DRM. Which means you must use
the current version of Windows Media player. That is reason enough
for me to avoid the service like the plague.
It doesn't use media player directly. I did have to install a patch for it
to be "playanywhere." comparable.
Worthwhile? Depends on the user. I know lots of people who like the
Yahoo service. Myself, I prefer iTunes. But I don't buy that much
music anyways. In the last few months I find myself spending my
listening time with Podcasts and not music.
Worthwhile? Hell yeah. I've got old tapes laying around that I paid some
bucks for but don't listen to them any more. Now, when I am tiered of a
song, gone and when a new good one comes out, I don't have to but it then
get sick of it, just dl it.
