Now that the major labels have started licensing their music to DRM-free and ad-supported music stores, Yahoo figures it might as well get in the action, having more or less given up on its DRM-ed subscription service.
Executives at the company, which is in the midst of downsizing, are still in the preliminary planning stages according to the Associate Press, and haven't decided whether to stream ad-supported music for free, sell DRM-free MP3s, or do both (letting you stream to any song X amount of times for free then buy it as a DRM-free MP3 from a potential Yahoo MP3 store).
However, Yahoo might be a little late to the party. Imeem and Last.fm already offer free, ad-supported
listening, Amazon already has an MP3 store, and there's more news along those lines to come from next week's MIDEM conference. But maybe, just maybe, Yahoo can beat them by offering both sides of the equation in a simple web interface, and exposing that to its massive user base.
