Sony, Yahoo Offer DRM-Free Downloadable Song

By Jay Lyman
TechNewsWorld

The Yahoo Music release -- a personalized song by Jessica Simpson -- is in MP3 format, which means it can be stored, transferred, burned and played on nearly all digital music players, including iPods. The key question, however, is whether consumers will be willing to pay a premium price for all this flexibility.

Sony BMG and Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO) are teaming up to provide online music downloads in the popular, flexible MP3 format without the usual digital rights management (DRM) controls, but for about twice the price of a typical title download.

The Yahoo Music release is limited to a single song from Jessica Simpson that is personalized with hundreds of names for different listeners, and was reportedly provided DRM-free for that reason. Still, the release represents a first with a major music label delivering a popular artist's work in MP3, the file-trading format that continues to draw the wrath of recording companies.


"I really think this is another crack in the wall of DRM denial that the major recording labels have been putting up," Electronic Frontier Foundation Senior Staff Attorney Fred von Lohmann told TechNewsWorld. Read more...