Sony, Yahoo Offer DRM-Free Downloadable Song

July 24, 2006 | Filed Under Sci and Tech

Your mother was right about sharing - Learn to share. Infact, Yahoo and Sony BMG Music is offering a premium price for DRM free downloadable songs. No catch, and it is in mp3 format, which basically means you can store it, transfer it and burn it as much as you like. You can even share it with your friends.

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. Its a good idea, but witha price tag of more than 99cent, why should I pay for that? I mean I can easily download it off the net for free at bittorrent or using Google search - yes you can use Google for searching mp3. Its illegal and I’m not going to say how.

The key question, however, is whether consumers will be willing to pay a premium price for all this flexibility? According to source, the reason behind this DRM free songs is the fear of turning Apple into a monopoly, controling the music industry in the near future. I think Apple has a great tool and market capability to turn their AAC format into the next mp3, what they need to do is open up the format for other competitors, once it has become a standard, its hard to bring it down - like Micorsoft.

To me, it doesn’t matter if the music is DRM free or not, if it is dirt cheap and I can afford it - then I’ll give my full support. For the moment, I’m still the old fashion type - CDs.

Technorati Tags: Sony, Yahoo Music, DRM, MP3, Download Songs, Google