There has been speculation in the past that digital rights management could hypothetically, one day, screw people out of their legally purchased music.  When I first posted about it, it was in reference to Microsoft; now, it’s about Yahoo! — who today announced plans to take their Music Store’s DRM licencing servers offline September 30th of this year.

Let’s face it — digital media sales can be a tough marketplace, and over time, the less popular contenders are going to go belly up.  But imagine if all the CDs you bought became hunks of useless plastic if the record store you bought them in closed its doors.  If you’re like most people, that would make you angry.

But that’s exactly what happens when digital music retailers stop operating the servers that allow mp3s to keep working.  Of course, there’s a simple solution to this problem: get rid of DRM.  Fair use aside — why would anyone want to buy something knowing it could spontaneously cease working in a few months — not through overuse or damage, but because the company selling the product failed to honour its implicit promise to keep the files operational?