Now that three of the four major labels have decided to sell music without DRM, I've finally decided to drop it too. I've subscribed to Napster, Rhapsody, Yahoo Music, and other music services over the years, but I canceled them all on Thursday as a sort of preemptive new year's resolution.
For much of the time I've covered online music, it was necessary to subscribe to these services, but the digital music scene has largely evolved past DRM. Services that use it are simply not where the action is. I may consider buying (and advising people to buy) un-DRMed music downloads from these services, but paying for a monthly subscription -- even though I can expense or write off the fees -- just doesn't seem as worthwhile as it did on the other end of 2007.
If I need a DRMed file in order to test something, I'll use SpiralFrog
or start a free trial account at one of the subscription services. Butnot even the tax write-offs justify my paying for locked-down music, especiallynow that the most interesting stuff happens on blogs and socialmedia sites.
Here's what it was like canceling my Napster, Rhapsody, and Yahoo Music subscriptions today. The experience varied a great deal, although in all cases I began by searching Google for "cancel [name of service]."
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Yahoo Music Unlimited
This offered the easiest and least complicated cancellation by far, though it required multiple confirmations. Perhaps Yahoo streamlined the process system to deal with all those disgruntled former Musicmatch users.
Total time for cancellation: 1 minute
Napster
What a pain. There's no way to cancel online, so I called the cancellation number (800.839.4210) and waited on hold for about 20 minutes listening to messages like "Didyou know that your Napster subscription lets you access over 5 milliontracks? Please hold, and a customer service representative will bewith you shortly."
A woman came on the line and asked me a bunch of questions (Was this my first call? Could I
confirm my email? Is there a phone number on which she could call me back incase something goes wrong with the call? Can I hold again?). Granted, this is two days after Christmas, but still, I wasn't too happy at how long this was taking.
When she took me off hold again, I told her I
wanted to cancel because 2007 was the year 3 of the major labelsstarted selling music without DRM. Back on hold.
She came back -- presumably after consulting a manager or the internet to find out whatDRM is -- and then responded, "I don't understand, because allof our music contains DRM." Back on hold. This time, I told her I wanted to cancel because the files were DRMed, and she finally canceled my subscription.
Total time for cancellation: 30 minutes and 32 seconds
Rhapsody
This was the hardest for me, because I've been impressed by Rhapsody since it was offered by Listen.com. But you have to stick to your guns. The FAQ implies that you can cancel online, but when I followed those directions, I reached a page that told me to call 866.597.5465 if I wanted to cancel (here we go again).
After 2 minutes on hold, a Russian sounding man asked for my email address and account number. When I said I wanted to cancel because of DRM, he read what I know was a script, because he read one paragraph twice. The spiel involved telling me that Rhapsody has 4.5 million songs, recently added new features, and offers MP3 downloads for some songs. Good points -- especially the last one -- but I wanted to cancel anyway. He said an email would arrive extolling more of Rhapsody's virtues; by responding to that in the negative, I could cancel.
Total time for cancellation: 10 minutes, 46 seconds on the phone (cancellation email arrived 3 hrs later).
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I reserve the right to change my mind and resubscribe if I end up beingwrong about this, or if someone I'm working for decides it'd be betterfor me to stay subscribed. Otherwise, I'm done paying for DRM-ed music subscriptions.
(image from jupiterimages)
