Yahoo music is selling a music file as a plain vanilla MP3 file with no DRM. Could this position them to compete against iTunes effectively? Only if music available as a protected AAC file on iTunes is also purchasable as a plain MP3 file on Yahoo! Music. From slashdot. The rationale is on the Yahoo! music blog.
Our position is simple: DRM doesn’t add any value for the artist, label
(who are selling DRM-free music every day — the Compact Disc), or
consumer, the only people it adds value to are the technology companies
who are interested in locking consumers to a particular technology
platform.