Yahoo offers music sans DRM

[epp_b]

From http://www.drmblog.org/index.php?/archives...3-Sans-DRM.html

On Wednesday, Yahoo Music announced it is selling Jessica Simpson's latest single, "A Public Affair," as an MP3 with no digital rights management, or DRM, technology. That means the tracks will play on any device and can be copied any number of times, including on CDs.

Hmm...well, there's some good math fer ya. Sell a DRM-free song that no one will buy :hysterical:Seriously, though, it's great to see that someone has had some sense knocked into them. Hopefully, this trend will continue.Unfortunately, it's not all fun and games - it has to be taken with a grain of salt...

The download is priced at $2, double what songs usually sell for at Yahoo and most other outlets. Ian Rogers of Yahoo Music wrote in a Yahoo Music Blog post Wednesday that the higher price reflects the fact that the song can be personalized by including the downloader's name, not that the track is DRM-free. Rogers goes on to say that he thinks the price of DRM-free tracks should be between $2 and the usual $1 pricing.

So, if I don't want that "personalization", you're going to drop the price back down to $1.00? Yeah, right. Oh, well, at least it's something.

"As you know, we've been publicly trying to convince record labels that they should be selling MP3s for a while now," Rogers wrote. "Our position is simple: DRM doesn't add any value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day -- the compact disc) or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform."

Wow! A music exec.-type who actually realizes the true slimy purpose of DRM for what it really is!? Can it really be? Hopefully he's not blowing smoke, but regardless of that, he's still quotable. Edited July 25, 2006 by epp_b