Vice President and General Manager of Yahoo Music, Ian Rodgers, gave a presentation to some members of the music industry last Friday at Digital Media Forum in LA.

He was blunt:

I’m here to tell you today that I for one am no longer going to fall into this trap. If the licensing labels offer their content to Yahoo! put more barriers in front of the users, I’m not interested. Do what you feel you need to do for your business, I’ll be polite, say thank you, and decline to sign. I won’t let Yahoo! invest any more money in consumer inconvenience. …

It’s over for Digital Rights Management.

I’ve read a dozen commentaries on Rodger’s speach, the best being Yahoo’s Ian Rogers To Music Industry: “Inconvenience Doesn’t Scale” by Mike Arrington on TechCrunch.

Like me, Arrington thinks these death struggles of the music industry will lead to drastically lower prices and far greater convenience.

I’ve hardly bought any music over the past 10 years. When songs cost $.15 each, and it’s no hassle to impulsively grab a track with my iPhone, I’ll buy plenty.

Long-term I expect the total value of all music in the world to stay about the same — a given percentage of disposable income of all the people in the world. But more artists will split the loot more equally. And many record executives will be selling real estate.

Subscribe to Ian Rodgers – personal blog.

I notice the front page of Yahoo Music links to Radiohead right now. They are siding with consumers now, not the labels.

Yahoo Music beta

PS

I’ve been dissing Prince of late. (He has been acting even goofier than usual.)

But I like the fact he gave away albums for free in the UK. His corporate master Columbia, a unit of Sony BMG, was not amused.