Yahoo! — more music without DRM

The folks at Disney seem to be jumping all over the digital media bandwagon lately, what with the deal to sell movies through Apple’s new movie-download service (the only studio to sign up with Apple so far), and now a deal with Yahoo to sell an entire album from a Disney artist — Jesse McCartney — in pure, unrestricted, uncrapped-up with DRM format. Maybe somebody slipped something into their coffee over there at The House That Mickey Built.

I’m sure Steve Jobs, who just joined Disney’s board after they acquired Pixar, would rather they stuck with iTunes and only iTunes, but it’s nice to see record companies trying something different. A representative from Disney-owned Hollywood Records told Variety magazine:

We’re trying to be realistic. Jesse’s single is already online and we haven’t put it out. Piracy happens regardless of what we do. So we’re going to see how Jesse’s album goes (as an MP3) and then decide on others going forward.

It will be interesting to see how sales of the album do, both of Yahoo’s DRM-free version and the DRM-rich iTunes version — not to mention the old-fashioned shiny metal disc version. A few years ago, the band Wilco streamed its entire Yankee Hotel Foxtrot album for free on its Web site, and wound up having a best-selling album on their hands.

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