Yahoo Music sells Jessica Simpson MP3 track without copy protection

One-off song costs $2

21 July 2006 17:02 GMT / By Amber Maitland

Yahoo Music is selling one – just one – song in MP3 format that is not digitally rights protected.

The track is a Jessica Simpson tune that can be customised so that she sings your choice of name, which Yahoo Music blogger Ian C Rogers says accounts for the relatively high price of $1.99.

As the voice for Yahoo, Rogers writes: "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, or consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology platform."

Songs bought from legal music download websites are usually copy-protected in some way so that they can't be shared amongst all music players and platforms.

But Yahoo seems to be hoping that an overwhelming response to the DRM-free pop tune "A Public Affair" will convince the music industry to stop copy-protecting its tracks.

Rogers writes: "We hope you see the importance of this, too, and pick up a copy for yourself and/or a loved one, even if you don't love [Jessica Simpson] and think that $1.99 is too much to spend on an MP3.

Full tags

Audio, Online, Music downloads, Yahoo