Go Spend $2 and make the world DRM free

[Sasq]

http://ymusicblog.com/blog/2006/07/19/buy-a-customized-jessica-simpson-mp3-at-yahoo-music/

[Jessterw]

Saw this a few days ago.

Can't help but feel it is purely a marketing ploy on the part of the artist and record company. Yahoo has stated before that they aren't in favour of DRM, but they are still actively feeding it with their music service. Granted, that very service - assuming it is profitable for the record companies - gives them some leverage to argue against DRM.

The $2 price is a little high, but as stated, that's purely for the personalization aspect, which is exactly why it feels like a gimmick that people are going to read too much into.

Hopefully I can be proved wrong, but given that the record labels have balked over being limited to 99¢ downloads via iTunes, if we do see DRM-less MP3s, I would hate to see at what cost.

[Sasq]

My interest in this is only on the DRM-less music, yup its a gimic at this point.
However, the record companies really haven't given us any choices up to this point regarding purchasing online with no DRM, this might be a gimick, but if enough units get sold, some bean counter somewhere will notice it...

[Jessterw]

That they can sell gimmicky $2 MP3s?

There are a few DRM-less music download services that are doing quite well. Granted they don't have a large catalogue of major record label artists. This is also not the first time a record label has released an MP3 version of a song for download, though it is the first time that I can recall that they have done so for a price.

If anything, I see this affirming record labels' opinion that they should be charging more for downloadable music.

[Gurm]

I still buy CD's. When I can afford them.