Bob Caswell

Hot on the heels of the Last.Fm announcement that you can stream any song up to three times for free, Yahoo rumors are brewing again. According to two record company executives wishing to remain anonymous, Yahoo is in talks with major record labels about offering DRM-free (unprotected) MP3s either for sale or for free supported by ads. Either way, Yahoo wants to launch the new service this year sometime.

This news could be even more interesting when juxtaposed with what Yahoo Music’s VP of Product Development Ian Rogers hinted at a couple weeks ago. Namely, big news revolving around dramatic changes in Yahoo’s music model. He said, “We’re in the process of redefining what Yahoo! Music is, and making it the Music destination in Yahoo!’s successful image.”

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Just a few days after our coverage of DRM-free music options for 2008 comes news of Sony BMG now offering its music on Amazon restriction-free. Sony BMG represents artists such as Bruce Springsteen, Foo Fighters, Santana, and Justin Timberlake. And this makes Amazon the first online music store to offer DRM-free songs from all four major labels: Sony BMG, Warner, EMI, and Universal Music.

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Last year around this same time I wrote on the then current companies killing DRM (Digital Rights Management, music with restrictions). Coincidentally, this year has the month of January giving us even more news on the battle-for-unrestricted-music front.

Here’s the latest news about music within the context of Amazon, Napster, Sony, and Yahoo:

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Hot on the heels of news of Apple soon offering rental movies via iTunes, Amazon has some even better news (in my opinion). Another sign that DRM (Digital Rights Management, music with restrictions) is on its way out: Amazon MP3 now offers DRM-free MP3s from Warner Music Group’s catalog.

This makes Amazon’s MP3 download store the first to offer DRM-free music from Warner Music and brings Amazon’s library up to 2.9 million songs, all without restrictions. And Warner’s catalog includes some of the most popular artists: Led Zeppelin, Metallica, Madonna, Green Day, Red Hot Chili Peppers, etc.

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The Wall Street Journal has the scoop on the latest Google news. Google is hoping to offer consumers a new way to store and access files online. The search giant is working on a service that would let you store essentially all of your files online (documents, music, photos, videos, etc.).

I already do this with Mozy for free. But Mozy works more as a backup that I generally access only when I need to restore files. Google wants to simplify the process of transferring and opening files such that you would actually be using your online files actively.

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Radiohead has decided to respond to the previous coverage of their social experiment of offering their album online at a name-your-own price. According to a study (by a third party, comScore), only 38% of downloaders paid something while the 62% majority paid nothing. And of those paying, most paid less than $4. While it was fun to speculate on what this could mean for the music industry, turns out any speculation was based on more speculation (comScore’s). Here’s what Radiohead had to say:

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About a month ago, we mentioned Radiohead’s social experiment of offering fans a choose-your-own-price way for downloading the band’s latest album (with the option of free). As I had mentioned, simple economics dictates that the most likely price in this case will be the minimum. And I was right, sort of.

Only 38% of downloaders paid something while the 62% majority paid nothing. Globally, the average price paid was $6; the average in the U.S. was around $8. But those numbers ignore the freeloaders. Including the “no pay” crowd, the average price was around $2.26 globally and $3.23 in the U.S. Of those who did pay something, 17% paid below $4 (the most common category) but 12% paid between $8 and $12, a price in line with iTunes or Amazon.

Was it a success? Yes and no, depending on how you look at it.

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Radiohead has decided to follow Prince’s lead by trying a new distribution model for their music. The band announced that the new album, In Rainbows, will only be available via Radiohead.com. And the consumer picks the price for the digital download. Time made it sound like “free” was even an option, though another source explains that there is a minimum charge of 1 pence plus a 45 pence credit card processing fee. In dollars, about $0.94, and that’s for the entire album.

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