There’s something noteworthy about the digital download version of “A Public Affair,” the latest single from pop star Jessica Simpson.
No, it’s not that the song can be personalized: Simpson and her backup singers recorded 500 first names, from Adriana to Zachary, that Yahoo Music will electronically insert at a dramatic moment in the music for $1.99 a pop.
Far more significant is another feature of the song: it is being distributed as a standard MP3 file, with no digital rights management (DRM) technology. And this comes from none other than Sony BMG, the record label that has taken the most extreme measures to keep customers from making digital copies of its songs (see “Inside the Spyware Scandal”).
Until now, essentially all of the legally purchased and downloaded music from the four major record labels—Sony BMG, EMI, Warner, and Universal—has been offered in formats designed to make copying and sharing difficult. Apple’s iTunes Music Store—the source of more than 70 percent of all commercial music downloads—limits customers to playing its songs on their iPods or up to five “authorized” computers.
But because it’s being released in the most universal audio format, Simpson’s song, which debuted on July 19 at Yahoo Music and goes on sale at other digital music retailers this week, can be copied and played on an unlimited number of devices, including the iPod. (Posting such digital files on file-sharing networks for anyone to copy is still illegal.)
[I actually think that I’m hallucinating, I think they might just be starting to get it, odds are good for them sellling a lot of these – ED]