Yahoo! wants DRM-free music sales

By Macworld staff

Yahoo! has ramped up its campaign for major labels to allow online music stores to sell music without copy protection.

Yahoo! product manager, Ian Rogers, wrote on the Yahoo! Music blog: "We've been publicly trying to convince record labels that they should be selling MP3s for a while now."

The company's arguments - as first reported by iLounge - are relatively simple. "DRM (digital rights management) doesn't add any value for the artist, label (who are selling DRM-free music every day - the CD), or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform."

Rogers then explains that DRM - which must be constantly policed and updated to guard against being compromised - is costly to create and maintain.

When it comes to resources, he explains: "We'd much rather have our engineers building better personalisation, recommendations, playlisting applications, or community applications, 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."

He also points out the limits of the exiting system: consumers cannot freely copy CDs they own due to copying restrictions, they can't play content on different devices, and DJ software cannot access and play protected content.

"Un-DRM'd content is implicitly more valuable to a consumer," he writes.

For the moment, DRM is always breakable. If I can hear it on my speakers then I can take that output and record it with no DRM. Depending on a person's system the quality of the copy can be just as good as the quality of the original. So take your DRM and stick it where the fcuking sun don't shine. Record companies should worry about producing something worthy of being copied. Most of the stuff they produce nowadays is pure . I'm glad to hear that some large businesses are waking up to the facts of life.

Better yet: Listen to DM instead and let the other bastards die starving.

You can make the music better by rerecording....Goose the bass and treble, and undo the 50 year old idiotic "RIAA curve", a no balls eq setting which idiots use to make sure they can pump bass through a three inch speaker, the same size as the average RIAA penis.

Oh dare I say it... no balls and a three inch penis--no wonder they're doomed to extinction.

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Yahoo, Sony BMG Offer DRM-Free Music


Yahoo is selling personalized Jessica Simpson music without digital rights management.


By K.C. Jones
TechWeb

Jul 21, 2006 01:41 PM

Yahoo is selling personalized Jessica Simpson music without Digital Rights Management.

Ian Rogers wrote Wednesday on the Yahoo music blog that Yahoo is offering personalized and DRM-free versions of "A Public Affair." Buyers can have their names included in the song so it speaks to them.

The recording industry has been pushing for increased DRM and copyright protection laws and enforcement to prevent piracy, which they say is hurting music sales. While independent labels and musicians offer music downloads without copyright protection, Sony BMG's release of a DRM-free song from Simpson marks a sharp turn in the company's tactics.

"Let me tell you, this is a bigger deal than you might think," he explained. "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."

Rogers said that only technology companies gain by locking people into a particular platform. He said DRM is costly for Yahoo and the company would prefer to have their engineers focusing instead on enhanced personalization, recommendations and applications.

Rogers said he thinks personalized copies are worth $1.99, or double the going rate for downloading songs, even without the increased versatility they offer " not to mention that the song will work with DJ and other software as well as different devices.

Yahoo has not mentioned any plans to expand its DRM-free offerings and did not respond to voicemail messages Friday.

Dave Goldberg, Yahoo vice president and general manager of music, appealed to record company executives in February to reconsider their insistence on DRM.

Non-DRM downloads, sounds like music to my ears.

One caveat:
"Rogers said he thinks personalized non-DRM copies are worth $1.99 . . ."

At what bitrate, 128 kps? If so, then even a "personalized copy" is overpriced at $1.99.
Of course, Mr. Rogers is free to think what he wants (and as a paying consumer, so am I)!

I wrote: 128 kps
I meant: 128 kilobytes per second

Was that Two Live Crew who released two differant versions to see (and prove) which would sell better? Im quite sure the non-DRM infected mp3s will sell well enough to prove to the RIAA that DRM is rejected by music fans (known to the RIAA as "consumers")

"Apple competitor eMusic has quietly become the No. 2 digital music service after iTunes by selling unprotected MP3s. However, eMusic sells only music from independent labels, and Yahoo and others have been calling for major producers to follow eMusic."
The RIAA backed industry following the steps of the independants?!? Guess that means we're in the lead eh?

Guess that means we're in the lead eh?^

"Guess that means we're in the lead eh?^"

I don't think so.
Take some time to carefully research
eMusics offerings.
So far it appears that their "independents"
are simply Big Music in disguise ( you know, so called Indies OWNED by the biggies ).

Their doing such smacks of deception. I'm guessing it's a jab at trying to dilute the concept of "independent".
But, what else should we expect of our adversary? The content cartels play harshly. They play unfairly. They're rotten to the core.

:disgust:

I'm guessing it's a jab at trying to dilute the concept of "independent".

They want to corrupt the word into nothing more than a "genere description" the same way they did with the word "alternative" back in the late '80's and early '90's.

BEWARE of the RIAA rape of our language folks!

RIAA? DRM? YAHOO? WTF? THIS IS ALL SO CONFUSING!!! SOMEONE PLEASE ExPLAiN FROM BEGINING!! PLEASE!!!!

1877 -- Thomas Edison invents the phonograph

OK Good, Now someone tell me wat is the RIIA. Please.

RIAA Sorry For My Spelling error

R.I.A.A. stands for: Recording Industry Association of America
For those who know them too well, R.I.A.A. may as well stand for:
Restrictive, Intrusive Association of A-holes

DRM stands for: digital rights management

But it may as well stand for: digital restrictions management

And . . .
I'm guessing you probably know what Yahoo is; you might be wondering how it's involved in the current context of digital music options. Right?

Without DRM, Yes, I would be able to flow my music and back it up as many times as I want, protecting my investment. But the problem inlies with some bozo making 20,000,000,000,000 copies of the music and selling the album, funding terrorism. So we need 'SOME' DRM, but NOT the intrusive DRM that messes with my ability to flow my music around and back it up securely to protect my songs I bought on the web.

Actually 20,000,000 bozos making one copy.
(No sale no foul. Terrorism is not involved btw.)