Yahoo announced Wednesday that it is selling Jessica Simpson’s latest single in MP3 format–in other words, with none of the usual copyright protection coding.
Because the song, a party-pop track called “A Public Affair,” has no digital rights management (DRM) protection coded into it, it will be compatible with just about every type of digital music player, from the iPod to the iRiver, as well as with film- and music-editing programs that may not have been able to read DRM-encoded files.
While MP3 music files are commonplace in search results of peer-to-peer networks where files can be copied and shared illegally, they’re noticeably scarce among files sold by online music stores such as Yahoo, Rhapsody and Apple Computer’s iTunes. This is because the DRM technology packed into those files dictates where, how often or for how long the content can be accessed. In the case of music files, DRM can control how many times a song is shared or copied, or what devices can play it.
“We’ve been publicly trying to convince record labels that they should be selling MP3s for a while now,” writes Yahoo Music blogger Ian Rogers. “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.”
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Jessica Simpson is really nice to look at but who the hell listens to her music other than little teens? DRM or not it’s a crime to flood the ‘net with that crap!