If you bought DRMed, copy-protected music, you are an idiot. Here's why: Yahoo is closing its music store, and on September 30th, 2008, it will also shut down its licensing servers. You'll still be able to play the music you have, if you do it on your existing computer. But if you buy a new PC, or even so much as change the hard drive, you're done for. And if you willingly paid for DRM crippled music, it's your own fault. Here's the email which Yahoo sent to customers:

From: Yahoo! Music [music@one.yahoo-email.com] Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 5:09 PM Subject: The Yahoo! Music Store Will Be Closing; Important Information About Backing Up Your Music Files The Yahoo! Music Store Will Be Closing; Important Information About Backing Up Your Music Files Greetings, The Yahoo! Music Store, along with the ability to purchase and download single songs and albums, will no longer be available as of September 30, 2008. Songs and albums that were purchased through the Yahoo! Music Unlimited Store are protected by a digital rights management system that requires a valid license key before they can be played on your computer. After the Store closes, Yahoo! will no longer be able to support the retrieval of license keys for music purchased from Yahoo! Music Unlimited, and Yahoo! will no longer be able to authorize song playback on additional computers. After September 30, 2008, you will not be able to transfer songs to unauthorized computers or re-license these songs after changing operating systems. Please note that your purchased tracks will generally continue to play on your existing authorized computers unless there is a change to the computer's operating system. For any user who purchased tracks through Yahoo! Music Unlimited, we highly recommend that you back up the purchased tracks to an audio CD before the closing of the Store on September 30, 2008. Backing up your music to an audio CD will allow you to copy the music back to your computer again if the license keys for your original music files cannot be retrieved. For further information on the closing of the Yahoo! Music Store, please refer to the Frequently Asked Questions or contact Customer Care. Stay tuned! While the Yahoo! Music Unlimited Store will no longer be available, Yahoo! Music has partnered with Rhapsody so you can still purchase your favorite tracks. Plus, Yahoo! Music will continue to offer users a complete online music experience with the largest collection of music videos, Internet radio, exclusive artist features, music news, and more! Thank you for using Yahoo! Music. The Yahoo! Music team

Yahoo's solution – to burn a CD and then re-rip it, is far from perfect. You'll lose quality, much like in the old analog tape-to-tape days, but at least you'll still have a copy. The other alternative is BitTorrent, where you can find complete, high bitrate copies of most new music, complete with artwork. It's free, fast and devoid of all copy protection. No, we don't condone piracy, but until those other idiots in the music industry realize that to compete with BitTorrent they need to offer a better product, not a far, far worse one, it seems that there isn't much alternative.

Will Yahoo relent and extend the death sentence placed on its music? Microsoft did just that after a deluge of user complaints about its similar euthanization of PlaysForSure back in April. Another alternative would be for Yahoo to simply replace these locked files with plain vanilla MP3s, something the company is not averse to. Back in February, Yahoo Music boss Dave Goldberg told the Silicon Valley Watcher that "I've long advocated removing DRM on music because there is already a lot of music available without DRM, and it just makes things complicated for the user".

The trouble here would still seem to be the record labels, who ultimately get to say what is done with their music. It must be obvious, even to them, that DRM is dying (it just takes one single track to be uploaded to a file sharing site to negate all the other DRMed tracks sold). Even so, instead of just dropping it and offering the customers what they want, the Big Labels are instead using DRM as a bargaining tool.

Famously, the Amazon music store carries music from all the big four labels in plain MP3 format. The same music isn't all available from the biggest online shop, the iTunes Store. The reason? It's widely thought that it is because the labels aren't happy with iTunes stranglehold on pricing and distribution, and is punishing Apple to force a more flexible market (read: higher prices). Add to this that most non-geek users don't care about DRM until it bites them, much like a fly doesn't see the spider's web until it is already trapped, and you have a situation that is, as Goldberg says "complicated for the user."

What can we say to convince you, record executive? It won't work. In his latest column for Britain's Guardian, Cory Doctorow likens the music industry's approach to that of the early days of the spam war. Despite content filtering, blacklisting and ISP level intervention, we have lost the war on spam. Doctorow wonders "how the entertainment industry plans on doing any better trying the same tactics on an even grander and more savage scale". One word: Fail. And the only ones getting hurt are, once again, the customers.

DRM still sucks: Yahoo Music going dark, taking keys with it [Ars]

The email [La Times]

Yahoo Music terms of service [Yahoo]