On the Yahoo! Music Blog, ian c. rogers is touting Yahoo’s personalized version of Jessica Simpson’s new song, A Public Affair. What’s most important, though, is that the copies they are selling are non-DRM’ed MP3 files - that’s right, no jumping through hoops to get this purchased song into your MP3 player, as there is no Digital Rights Management software for you to have to break just to play the song. As the blog says, “even if you’re not into Jessica Simpson, and you’re not excited about spending $2 for a song, let me tell you, this is a bigger deal than you might think.”

And it really is; for the first time, a major label (Sony) is selling music on the Internet that is actually useful, even if it is a pitiful little pop ditty sung by a no-talent “celebrity” with little going for her but her legs and publicity manager. You’d think I’d be shouting to the rooftops that everyone should buy a copy, just to send a powerful message to the industry that DRM doesn’t bother pirates, only causes problems for legitimate users, and non-DRM’ed music can be profitable. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend you bother spending the $1.99, even so…I tried to spend $2 of my own, and discovered there’s something even worse than DRM attached to this song.

See, you need a YahooID to purchase the song. That’s right, before you can give them $2 to get a copy, you have to give them boatloads of personal information.

There isn’t much I like less than the RIAA’s instance that any digital music be crippled…but one of ‘em is companies telling me, “you’re privacy is important to us, because we make lots of money by violating it.” I refuse to sign up for a YahooID, since it costs me my most valuable possession - my personal information. They claim it’s “free!” when in reality it isn’t - it costs me much more than mear money, and I honestly can’t figure why more people don’t realize how much it really costs to give companies a window into who you are.

So nope, avoid this like the plague, too. Hopefully someone who isn’t based in Russia will sell a song as an uncrippled MP3 without asking for my birthdate, favorite food, or how many times I have sex in a year. Then, I promise you, I will scream in this space that you need to buy the song, even if it is by someone without talent.

From SyFy Portal: Abrams Coy On Next Trek Film

Yeah, the wonderboy who kills off every show he does when he finds another one is now going to muck with the Star Trek universe. “‘We have an incredible story,’ he said.” Sure you do; can’t wait to see the backstory of Kirk being abused as a child, and Spock discovering his father is a plomeek addict.

Quit screwing with our youth already.