First, here's the official revised policy that Yahoo announced today, according to the Associated Press:

The company said Wednesday it is offering coupons on request for people to buy songs again through Yahoo's new partner, RealNetworks Inc.'s Rhapsody. Those songs will be in the MP3 format, free of copy protection. Refunds are available for users who "have serious problems with this arrangement," Yahoo said.

John Healey at the Los Angeles Times' blog Bit Player published this additional information, which sounds like a hidden perk of the Yahoo Music Store closing:

Carrie Davis at Yahoo provided these nuggets of detail: if you're looking for a coupon or a refund, contact Yahoo's Customer Care department. There's no need for proof of purchase. The offer expires at the end of the year. By the way, coupons can be redeemed for any track at Rhapsody, not just the ones the customer purchased from Yahoo.

Of course, you'll have to explicitly request the coupons, then take the time to re-download your songs—or download new ones if you didn't like the ones you originally bought (although that's pretty shady, especially if you don't delete the DRM-wrapped ones)—so it's not the smoothest transition to DRM-free music. On the other hand, we're glad to see Yahoo isn't totally abandoning its customers after all.

"Yahoo offers coupons for music that stops working" [Associated Press] (Thanks to Chris!)
"Yahoo rethinks, offers refunds for DRM-wrapped songs" [Bit Player at Los Angeles Times]
(Photo: Getty)

Yahoo! Music was painless to cancel, but Napster took a half hour:

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 "Did you know that your Napster subscription lets you access over 5 million tracks? Please hold, and a customer service representative will be with 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 in case 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 labels started selling music without DRM. Back on hold.

She came back — presumably after consulting a manager or the internet to find out what DRM is — and then responded, "I don't understand, because all of 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