“Yahoo for the fist time is offering a popular song for sale unprotected by anti-copying technology. It’s a one-time deal with record label Epic that the web giant nevertheless portrayed as significant progress toward its goal of eventually selling all music downloads with no restrictions,” Eli Milchman reports for Wired.
“On Wednesday Yahoo Music announced it is selling Jessica Simpson’s latest single, “A Public Affair,” as an MP3 with no digital rights management (DRM) technology. That means the tracks will play on any device and can be copied any number of times, including on CDs,” Milchman reports.
“The Simpson experiment includes a customization option, allowing customers to purchase a version of the song that includes a choice of dozens of possible names in the song lyrics,” Milchman reports. “The download is priced at $2, double that of what songs usually sell for at Yahoo and most other outlets. Ian Rogers of Yahoo Music wrote in a Yahoo Music Blog post on Wednesday that the higher price reflects the fact that the songs can be personalized by including the downloader’s name, and not because the track is DRM-free. Rogers goes on to say that he thinks the price of DRM-free tracks should be between $2 and the usual $1 pricing.”
“Although Yahoo positioned the offer as a major step toward establishing wider releases of unrestricted downloads, analysts expresses skepticism that record labels are ready for this step. Only one online music outlet, Emusic, offers all of its downloads in MP3 format, but it doesn’t carry songs from major labels like Sony and Capitol,” Milchman reports. “The availability of a DRM-free download at a major online music seller is a one-time promotion and won’t become a general trend, according to Michael Gartenberg, an analyst at technology research company Jupiter Research.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Yahoo’s massive library of DRM-free MP3 tracks also includes zero (0) other songs.
One freakin’ song! This makes the news?!? Oh, yeah, it is Wired.
I’ll take Apple’s superior AAC encoding over MP3 anyday (although I do wish it was 192 bit, not 128), and the DRM is pretty liberal.
Oh boy one whole song without DRM for sale. Boy Epic really stuck its neck out on this one, NOT!!! I’m sorry I just don’t seem to feel any big excitement over this single song for sale at double the price from an artist who is more know n for her marriage then her singing talent.
Pearl Jam released their newest single World Wide Suicide in April for free without DRM and told everyone to copy of it and send it around. Yahoo & Simpson are no ground breakers here.
Who cares if one service offers $1.99 downloads without DRM. I’d rather pay 99 cents and get a track with DRM, It doesn’t stop me from burning it to cd or copying it to my iPod.
People, it’s not about how big their library is! This could be a start if everyone went to buy this song! It would show that people are willing to PAY for a song without restrictions. If everyone would pay, maybe this would open up the studio’s eyes. If nobody is willing to pay, the studios would say that they were right all along. No DRM-less songs forever!
I wouldnt pay 10 cents for one of her songs.
T– Apple has already proved that people are will to pay WITH restrictions. This is simply a publicity stunt to jump start the flagging career of JS. Take this recording… PLEASE!
Who is going to buy the 1 copy then share the shit out of it?
T: I don’t think the problem is the ‘experiment’ they’re trying – it’s the song they decided to experiment with. Who the hell really buys Jessica Simpson music? Oh boy, I can also get her singing to ME!! Ain’t I cool?
BTW: eMusic is great. Most of the music is better than major label shit, and not only DRM free, but variable bit-rate, usually averaging 180-190 kbps. Oh yeah, my cost per song is a little over $0.22. Too bad I can’t refer you all and get a bunch of free downloads, but they won’t let me do that indirectly… heh, heh.
Of course, the only other online source of music I need combined with eMusic is…. ta da… iTunes Music Store. Apple DRM (fairplay) works invisibly for the most part, and I have never run into any restrictions in my use – sharing on 5 computers, burn all I want in multiple playlist combinations mixed with file-share mp3s, eMusic stuff, personal ripped music and AAC DRM’d stuff. Oh, forgot. I’m also mixed platform, with Win2k laptop, souped up PC desktop, Mac mini G4, Powermac B&W G3 and Macbook. Gotta love iTunes. Maybe I’ll get an iPod one of these days.
It’s called publicity for the artist — it’s a promotion, not a trend. The record companies would NEVER agree to non-DRM catalogs of music. Get real.
Jessica has to give it away because no one would pay for it.
Now if it comes with nude pictures of her, I’ll buy.
Burn a CD, save a buck!
Of corse one CD will hold several songs so in theory you save several bucks and have a hard copy for backup.
In Yahoo’s case, you’ll have to burn the same song several times.
The “Simpson experiment” is not about DRM’s, but in marketing.
If you want non-DRM, use iTunes 5 to download from iTMS and JHymn to strip the DRM (doesn’t work with iTunes 6). Then you can convert to MP3 in iTunes. For a library of however many million there are on iTunes at 99¢ a song (or the rip-off of 79p in the UK…that translates to about $1.40 USD
mp3’s SUCK who would buy it anyway? … I’m sorry I meant Jessica Simpson
“Only one online music outlet, Emusic, offers all of its downloads in MP3 format”
Oh, really?! There are MANY that sell just MP3s as well as DRM-free including tuneflow.com.
Jessica Simpson sings? Is she any good?
MDN word: need
I don’t need any $2 songs from Jessica Simpson, DRM’ed or not.
Yahoo? The company that won’t support Safari or the Mac on any of its video download pages? That won’t retransmit video files for the Mac even when they’re available from the original source in Quicktime?? I actually used to like Yahoo and used it as my home page, now I’m looking for a permanent replacement.
I’ve sent them numerous letters about their Mac-hostile policies, but never got anything beyond a form letter thanking me for my comment!
MP3Tunes.com also offers DRM-free MP3’s, and they’re 88 Cents each
Tug: you’re right, there are a number of websites that sell non-DRM mp3s besides eMusic. A lot of these music e-tailers feature non-professional tracks made by some very talented, non-signed musicians, but I think the point about eMusic is that they sell tracks from albums released by independent and smaller record companies, and many of their offerings can also be found on iTunes Music Store. Much like tuneflow.com, eMusic let’s customers sign up on one of several different ‘tiers’ of membership. It seems like a subscription, but you get a set number of tracks per month to download for keeps, depending on what kind of membership you choose. For under $10/month, download and keep 40 tracks. The best deal is the $19.95 package, which gives you 90 tracks over the month. Plus, you can go back and re-download any previously purchased tracks, and they don’t count against your allotment that month. This feature alone is something iTunes should offer. Then, there’s the 50 tracks free for each new member you invite who joins. Lastly, I’ve always recieved download credit whenever I encounter a ripped track that has a glitch (I’ve run into 2.)
Bottom line – I’ve found a ton of great professionally recorded tracks/albums on eMusic that I’d happily buy in a store, but I’m paying a lot less for high quality mp3s. ($0.22 – 0.25 per track – not counting the bonus free tracks.)
Oh yeah, I don’t work for eMusic. Just think it’s a valuable resource for music fans, along with all the other sites that feature new artists like tuneflow and icompositions, etc…
“Who is going to buy the 1 copy then share the shit out of it?”
Are you serious? How about the thousands of Napster users back when it was a peer-to-peer free-for-all where members ripped their purchased CDs and illegally posted the MP3s for free download?
I think there are still thousands (if not millions) of them with the same mindset…
Swordmaker, I am quite aware that in the Napster hey-day people were sharing songs illegally – that was kind of my point. In order to rip purchased CD’s then someone, somewhere has to have purchased the cd in the first place – unless every song every shared illegally was itself stolen originally. My point was intended to be that if only 1 person actually buys this record then shares it to everybody under the sun then the non-drm experiment will be done. As such DRM will have made its point. Of course, how many people are really going to want a Jessica Simpson song – free or not?
The pro-DRM people are probably hoping this song becomes massive with everyone singing it under their breath – but they sell minimal copies.
It looks half hearted and overly cautious doesn’t it? I can’t remember Apple holding back at all when they launched iTunes.
Hey Huh?,
I have just looked into eMusic and I’m do the free trial. If I sign up now I get 25 downloads, but if you give me a link I will get 50 (and you’ll get $6) – so post a link if you read this please…
Thanks,
Tom
2 Bucks. Tell ’em they’re dreamin’.
I concur with most of the anti-MP3 posts here – its time to move on from MP3, and while we’re at it, its time to upgrade the industry standard MPEG-2 to something else as well. …let’s see – MPEG-4 maybe?
MPEG-2 for video and MPEG-3 for audio are standards in serious need of change. Lets move on please, its not like we’ve got to wait for the new codecs.