It’s a small step to be sure, but I still think it’s pretty exciting that Sony BMG has allowed Yahoo! Music to release a Jessica Simpson song sans digital rights management. Yahoo’s Dave Goldberg has been a rare voice of sanity on DRM over the last few months, and it looks like his persistence may be paying off. Or maybe music execs have been reading my column from last November arguing that they’re handing control over their industry to Steve Jobs.
It remains to be seen if this is just a one-off publicity stunt or the start of a wider trend. But as Apple continues to twist the screws on the labels and as it becomes ever more obvious that FairPlay isn’t stopping a single person from downloading the music they want form illicit file-sharing sites, even music industry executives may come to realize the increasingly obvious point that DRM benefits Apple and Microsoft, not them.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.
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