Yahoo have released for sale a song that is DRM free. (One song only, mind you). Unfortunately it’s Jessica Simpson – but you can get it personalised before you download it – get your name in the song. As the Yahoo blog puts it
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!
Suw, reperesenting the Open Rights Group is quoted in the BBC article:
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. “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.”
Now this is one track only, a very commercial track with a ‘trick’ included. Yahoo and more inportantly the record agencies will wait to see how successful it is before they attempt another version. Oh no..does that mean I have to go and buy a Jessica track to support this?
