Yahoo! Music Unlimited doubles subscription fees

By Steve Malone

Posted on 24 Oct 2005 at 10:33

Reportedly under pressure from the music industry, Yahoo! is raising its prices on the Yahoo! Music Unlimited service.

From 1 November, the company will be hiking the annual subscription fee by five dollars to $9.99 per month from the current $4.99 a month, making a total of $119.88. This represents a whopping rise over the current annual fee of $59.88. The monthly fees will rise from $6.99 to $11.99.

The service allows free access to over a million songs - providing the subscription is kept up to date. If the subscription is allowed to lapse, the songs that have been downloaded through the service become unplayable.

Yahoo! is still promoting a monthly $6.99 subscription price. However, this option loses the ability to transfer downloaded songs to a portable device. Those who have purchased an annual subscription, however, will continue to receive the 'To Go' feature for the remainder of their existing subscription.

It has been rumoured for some time that the music labels have been concerned about the size of library compared with the lowish price offered by the Internet giant. The new pricing now brings Yahoo! much more into line with other services such as Napster that offers a subscription service for $9.95 a month.

Yahoo! Customers who don't want to subscribe can still choose to download a track outright for 79c.

The Yahoo! Music Unlimited service is US only although the company has said that it is working with European copyright holders to launch a service over here. The rise in the subscription price is likely to make the launch of a European service more likely as the royalties to copyright holders are much more attractive.

Last week Yahoo reported another bumper quarter. The company recorded revenues of $1,330 million for the third quarter of 2005, a 47 percent increase compared to $907 million for the same period of 2004.