Yahoo! Music Sells Jessica Simpson Without Protection

Authored by Jay Baage on July 21, 2006 - 9:13am.

Yahoo! is Releasing Jessica Simpson’s New Single ”A Public Affair” as an MP3 download without copy protection and with the option to be personalized.

What makes selling MP3s controversial is that the MP3 is an open format. That means it is compatible with any digital music player, including Apple's popular iPod player. Record labels usually require online music stores to have some form of digital rights management (DRM) restrictions on its downloads.

Files without copy protection, the record companies argue, can be freely shared or traded over peer-to-peer networks. But DRM also complicates things and make a lot of devices and music services not compatible. This is why you can’t, for example, use your iPod player together with a download and subscription service from Yahoo! Music or Real Rhapsody.

On the official Yahoo music blog, director of product management Ian Rogers wrote: "As you know, we've been publicly trying to convince record labels that they should be selling MP3s for a while now. 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."

The new track, costing $1.99, can also be personalised before the song is downloaded, allowing users to have their name inserted in the lyrics.
Suw Charman, executive director of the digital advocacy body the Open Rights Group says the experiment is "clearly a gimmick" but still a significant move, according to BBC News.
"It's an important experiment," she said. "I hope it's the beginning of a significant movement from them [Yahoo]."
"It sends a strong message about not having to have DRM on everything."

Related Links:
feed://www.ymusicblog.com/blog/wp-rss2.php
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5203146.stm
http://dmwmedia.com/news/2006/07/13/jessica-simpson-to-release-first-personalized-digital-single