Home > Geekboy > Archives > 2006 > February > 13 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.USPart 2: Yahoo! owes me a mouse
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week, we got the pay for play MP3 party started by finding an online service that sells “music downloads.”
This week I detail exactly why Yahoo owes me a mouse.
During the install, which took a long time due to what I surmised were server issues, Yahoo tries to make itself your browser’s default search engine and home page.
And to throw salt on the wounds, Yahoo also tries to become your default media player, which for most users means it supplants Windows Media Player, not something I advise.
YAHOO MUSIC ENGINE 1.1 is installed and I feel like I’ve just finished the terrible first tome of a trilogy, but must keep reading or won’t get paid.
The Yahoo Music Machine interface did not impress me, and I’d never heard of the featured artists, but it’s not like I was expecting Bill Monroe.
At this point it occurs to me that Yahoo marketing must be schizophrenic – thus far I’ve run across Yahoo Music Unlimited (the music club?), Yahoo Music Machine (the interface?), Yahoo Music Engine (the program?), and something called Launchcast, which is apparently Yahoo’s online radio service. I’m going to keep calling this thing Yahoo Music Machine.
There’s a lot going on here. What to do first?
I rated the styles of music I prefer. This allegedly tells Yahoo what sort of music to shove down my throat.
Then I searched for music. I decided to give Yahoo a real test.
I typed Bluebells in the search bar and only got one song. But that was a toughie.
I tried a few other less-than-popular artists:
Nick Drake: 44 songs
Gram Parsons: 20 (someone should be Launchcast into orbit!)
Pretty impressive.
I tried some popular artists for comparison.
Coldplay: 69
U2: 171
The Beatles: 157, but all are karaoke and interviews, not real songs. Few realize it, but karaoke means ‘empty orchestra” in Japanese and “get off the stage you talentless stooge” in English.
Search for the Musical Grail:
For years, Geekboy has been looking for a mythical album, one he wore out in college that was tragically lost in a girlfriend shuffle.
I type in Rain Parade.
Sweet Filo and Yang! 15 songs, including every track from the vaunted “Explosions in the Glass Palace� EP!
As soon as the pleasing sounds of “You are my Friend� fill Geekboy’s computer cavern, a smile fills my face.
I decided to give Yahoo another chance. This could be fun!
I added a few more Rain Parade songs to my playlist and kicked back. The sound quality is not very good – there is no indicator of sound file bit rate, but I assume it is somewhere in the 64-96 kbps range because it sounds brittle and overcompressed.
You can rate each song, which I assume alters your musical taste preferences for Launchcast radio.
Music is a powerful thing. I was starting to like this. I felt ashamed. Like somehow I had betrayed geeks everywhere.
I decided to let Yahoo search for other music files on my computer and it found 3500 files on my dual 200 gig drives!
Strangely, it listed music and other audio snippets from video games as songs. And some of the song titles were mislabeled “OLD HARD DRIVE� which told me something was very screwy with the Ye Olde Search Function.
At this point I notice Yahoo suggests The Smiths, Steve Earle and Johnny Cash, which I have a lot of MP3s of.
The Smiths’ song “Cemetery Gates� is misspelled. Tsk, tsk!
Did Yahoo extrapolate my musical preferences from my MP3 collection? I think so. This seems a bit invasive. I wonder what else they are searching for?
Paranoia sets in.
I tried the Launchcast radio station based on my personal preferences and Barry White’s “Just the way you are� fired up.
Paranoia subsides.
Though you are given the option of buying single tracks, I decide to buy the whole Rain Parade album — $8.48 for 11 songs, about 79 cents each.
I had to re-enter my credit card info. The songs began downloading, you can see their progress at the bottom of your browser. Whatever you do, leave things alone while they download. If you navigate away, you will have to redownload the songs again, I learned. I was not charged twice to do this, but why take the chance. Patience grasshopper!
You will have no idea where the music is being saved. You are not given the option of choosing a location.
I found the files in My Documents/My Music/My Yahoo Music Folder. By playing the files in WinAmp I learned they are not MP3s, but WMAs, a file type created by Microsoft that almost all portable devices support. The bit rate is 192kbps, which is good enough for all but the most snobbish of ears.
A “related artistâ€? for Rain Parade was Echo and the Bunnymen. I clicked the greatest hits collection “Songs to Learn and Singâ€? and bought it too — $7.87 for 15 songs, which is cheaper, 52 cents per track.
I have no idea why the price was different, Yahoo advertises “80 cents a song.�
Echo and the Bunnymen had 147 songs on Yahoo, which is more than Coldplay. That seemed odd but made me happy.
You can sort by date, title, popularity. That is handy. You can also sort by album, which is useful.
You can also read artist and album reviews, but some are what you might call terse. The Rain Parade review was one sentence – “A pleasant slab of psychedelic pop.�
The “burn CD� button on Yahoo Music Machine glared balefully.
I clicked it, hoping it would burn my playlist, which included only songs I had purchased.
It didn’t work. The program rudely informed my I did not have enough “rights� to burn the music I had paid for.
I fire up Nero Burning Rom, a popular CD burning program. I always liked the joke – Rome burned while Nero fiddled, thus the program is called Nero Burning Rome. Ah … the sweet pleasures of nerddom.
I load up the Rain Parade tracks in Nero and click “burn.�
I get the same message! Despite paying Yahoo $20 I can’t burn a single track to CD.
The wireless optical mouse goes flying. I should have stuck with the corded model.
Final thoughts:
It was fun to search for obscure artists and hear their songs again. Artists like Rain Parade deserved better than they got, and I am glad online services remember them.
Is it worth $6 a month? You would think so, but … the terms and conditions you must agree to are too restrictive.
The Yahoo user agreement says you cannot put music you have download and paid for onto a portable device like an iPod.
Geekboy doesn’t like that.
The music you have paid for, it seems, can’t even be moved to another computer!
But my real beef with Yahoo, and I assume all download sites will be the same, is that I feel I should be able to burn songs I have paid for down to a CD for use in my car.
Why pay $9 for an album you can only listen to on your computer? Why not scour Amazon.com for a used CD? Why not trek down to a used record shop and help out a local businessman?
Is convenience worth getting rooked?
Until things change, Geekboy won’t be using pay for play sites.
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Comments
Commenting is now closed for this entry.
By DOUGH
February 13, 2006 11:33 AM | Link to this
I CAN ONLY SAY ONE THING TO YOU THERE GEEKBOY, lIMEWIRE,LIMEWIRE,LIMEWIRE!!!!!!!MAY NOT BE FREE BUT FINDS ALMOST EVERYTHING YOU WANT & TELLS USERNAME, QUALITY, SIZE, AND LETS YOU FULLY CONTROL YOUR DOWNLOADING EXPERIENCE…THE ONLY PROBLEM WITH IT IS WHEN YOU LOAD IT UP IT ALWAYS TRIES TO GET YOU TO BUY THE PRO VERSION…BUT OF COURSE, ONE CLICK OF THE MOUSE CAN TAKE CARE OF ALL OF THAT!!!JSUT MAKE SURE YOU HAVE A WORKING (NOT THROWN ACCROSS THE ROOM) RODENT TO DO THE TRICK!!!
By Shaye
February 13, 2006 12:43 PM | Link to this
Ridiculous. Once I buy user rights to a song, I should have the ability to use it however I want, as long as it’s not making someone else a copy. greedy record companies… stupid Yahoo!… yadda, yadda…
By edge770
February 13, 2006 01:52 PM | Link to this
You and Rodney Ho needs to get the Record Company spokespersons in a live chat, to explain this ridiculous, hideous and moronic methology of music downloads. 1. When I buy music, I don’t want DRM all over my pc. 2. I know for a fact they are losing customers especially of the regular “non geek” households, because the parents and the kids find out (after the fact) they are screwed and don’t have the ability to get the music they paid for, in the format they want. Whether it be cd’s media servers or portable devices. 3. Music industry will continue it’s decline, until they wake up and smell the coffee, and proceed accordingly. I might want to add that companies like Microsoft, Apple and Creative Labs, are not left out of the embarassment corner either.
By Joe
February 13, 2006 02:12 PM | Link to this
It appears that Geekboy is much more Boy than Geek. Unless there are DRM (Digital Rights Management) issues - which is not often the case - you can burn any downloaded track. You can also download in both WMA and MP3 formats.
I think you can log this under User Error rather than issues with Yahoo.
By Tionne
February 13, 2006 02:32 PM | Link to this
Anyone who is using Windows Media Player instead of Winamp needs their head examined.
By Scott
February 13, 2006 02:58 PM | Link to this
Actually Joe, you must not have had much experience with downloading music from sites such as this because they all have restrictions of one kind or another when it comes to their music files. Napster I think actually has a way of rendering their song files useless once you are no longer subscribed to their service, and pretty much all of the services have some restriction on burning to CD. itunes for instance only allows you to burn a song 7 times, which seems to be better than most of the services I’ve researched, and you also don’t have to pay any subscription fee for them, as I find it astounding if a site expects you to pay a monthly fee AND pay for downloading. But the person that mentioned the idiocy of the record companies is dead on. They just don’t have a clue.
By Mick O.
February 13, 2006 05:01 PM | Link to this
Yahoo! intends for music you paid for to be burnable. The fact that you could not burn the purchased tracks is a bug. It works for me, but sounds like not for you. I suggest checking out the official discussion group for potential solutions.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/yme-feedback/
By David
February 13, 2006 06:10 PM | Link to this
Geekboy you are a life saver! I am an old guy (and you think the songs you were searching for are old) who has been tempted to try one of these sites for a couple of years but could never get the nerve to do it. There is only one reason I would download music and that would be to burn it on CD so that I could listen to it in the car. I would have been so PO’ed if I’d signed up and couldn’t burn to Cd. Thanks.
By Scott
February 14, 2006 02:09 PM | Link to this
I’m really not surprised to hear you’ve had problems with yahoo. I’ve used their IM program for awhile now, several versions, and granted it’s free and you get what you pay for, but it’s one buggy piece of software. And from the little experience I’ve had, yahoo aren’t exactly the kings of customer service. I’m also not a big fan of the way that they try to install crap they didn’t ask for on the computers of the slightly less savvy. As you said, ANYTIME you’re installing something, you should read carefully what you’re installing and do the custom install if you see something extra thrown in.