link tl/dr: DRM sucks because, when the provider shuts down the server, your product stops working. But the people who pirated the music, or broke the DRM, are unaffected. So what good is DRM ? (both in music and in software) It is incapable of stopping piracy, but it makes the pirated copy a high quality than the legit copy because the pirated copy won't stop working just because someone turns off the DRM server.
Funny thing is, I have known about this for over a year and a half now. Yahoo Music! was used with the Sandisk Connect, unfortunately though, I was unable to let anyone know due to an NDA that Yahoo and Sandisk had. Albeit since I do not work for the company anymore because they moved everything to Manila/India plus other international countries, I do not care anymore. But yeah, this has been in the works for over a year and a half now.
Oh, this isn't the first time someone has shutdown their DRM server and screwed over their own customers. Major league baseball did this last november. Google threatened the same back in august, then backed off. But back when there was the controversy over the DRM in Spore and Mass Effect, we had a few people who were arguing for the proposed DRM. Then again, all DRM is based around several assumptions: 1 - There are a large number of pirates. (probably true, but I'm not aware of any reliable figures on it) 2 - If something prevented these pirates from pirating, a significant number of them would purchase the product instead of just going without. (I've never seen anyone even try to address this) 3 - DRM will prevent piracy. (I'm not aware of any released digital media that hasn't been cracked, so I view this assumption as invalid.) 4 - The lost sales from people driven away by the DRM will be less than the new sales from assumption 2, minus the cost of implementing the DRM. Though I have to admit that the above paragraph has me making the assumption that the DRM is there to prevent piracy. An assumption which I find questionable.
Yahoo is reimbursing people. http://www.informationweek.com/news/personal_tech/music/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=209601121 the electronic frontier foundation has been warning this would happen from the beginning of drm. love the irony of Yahoo now suggesting you burn your DRM music to a cd.
yeah here is the thing you guys. You burn your DRM music from lets say itunes, or wherever, then you take that and rip it back into say windows media player and voila no more drm.