You could look at Yahoo’s entry to the digital download marketplace as just another company hoping to cash in on the profitability of Apple’s coat tails, but that analysis would neglect one major point: Yahoo has managed to do something that Apple has not yet been able to. Namely, provide music tracks unencumbered by the Digital Rights Management that plagues consumers.
Yahoo, of course, is not the first to go down this path. eMusic has been doing the same for years, though their selection of artists has often been hampered by that stance. But Yahoo’s major offering of DRM-free music is the new Jessica Simpson album. Simpson is a high profile artist to be trying such a tack with, and Yahoo has taken it one step further by loudly proclaiming their support of DRM-free music in a blog entry:
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.Here’s hoping Yahoo’s started a trend. I suppose we’ll have to wait until the numbers are in to see how this affects the market.We’ve also been saying that DRM has a cost. It’s very expensive for companies like Yahoo! to implement. We’d much rather have our engineers building better personalization, recommendations, playlisting applications, community apps, etc, instead of complex provisioning systems which at the end of the day allow you to burn a CD and take the DRM back off, anyway! And on the consumer end there is certainly some discount built into that $0.99 download for the fact that you can burn a limited number of times, can’t play it on your Squeezebox, can’t DJ it with your DJ software, and can’t make a movie out of it with iMovie? I certainly hope so. Un-DRM’d content is implicitly more valuable to a consumer.
The Yahoo comment is misleading. I don't have any trouble using iTunes Store-bought music in iMovie or iDVD.
This is just stupid. So they could have limited artists and one Jessica album.
Apple didn't come up with the idea of DRM you know...
If all artists demanded it be lifted, don't ya think Apple would be right there with the biggest, most popular and successful operation?
Three things. First, I would not call Jessica Simpson a major artist. She, however, is somebody who I believe Yahoo could buy off to make a self-serving point. With that said, I agree DRM is not needed.
Second, people act as if the DRM is what makes iTunes and the iPod popular. It is not. For that to be true most people would have had to get their music library from iTunes. Most people's music does not come from iTunes, but instead is in unprotected MP3 format (either from legally ripped CD's or peer to peer networks). Accordingly, if people wanted to switch players it would be easy for most people to do so. Moreover, originally Apple tried to say it did not support DRM, but record companies have insisted on it. For what it is worth, I think DRM protects Apple's image. If people were able to put music on their computers from services like Napster, any related problems would be blamed on Apple as opposed to Napster. Accordingly, Apple's support costs likely are lower by locking other companies music out.
Third, record companies, not artists are calling the shots. Record companies get artists to sign away most of their rights to pay for that record contract.
I hope Yahoo enjoys getting the hell pirated out of them.
Yahoo's being pretty self-serving when they say that DRM only benefits technology companies (i.e. Apple) when it's the record companies that insisted on DRM. I'm sure Apple would have been just as happy to hawk straight MP3's, as long as people keep buying iPods.
Nevertheless, it's about time a major company came out and admitted that DRM has NO value. I hope this is the first nail in DRM's coffin.
And Greg--most releases of anything (songs, movies, etc) are seeded to pirate servers before they're even publicly available. Any DRM can be cracked, and it only takes one copy for anything to be found on the file-sharing networks. Piracy is a done deal. There's not going to be any more or less availability of Jessica Simpson on Kazaa, etc no matter what Yahoo does.
Yahoo is most likely wishing to demonstrate to the world that non-DRM'ed content might actually sell BETTER than the current DRM-laden offerings. And I hope they do, and shove that proof down RIAA's/MPAA's collective throats.