Yahoo Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) may be interested in offering a music download service that is free of digital rights management (DRM), similar to Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL)'s iTunes plus and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN)'s music download service. It's safe to say that the end is coming near for proprietary, restricted, protected music downloads that are incompatible between different types of music players and music download services.

The only problem is that Yahoo! did not started the initiative earlier and has left the competition to take the initial market share pie of music download lovers who want music free of use restriction. It's not that Yahoo! made a bad choice here; it's jumped on the bandwagon with every other music download provider. It's just that it may be too late for it to take any significant market share, unless it offers something compelling the competitors don't.

Yahoo! has apparently been talking to large music labels such as Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group Corp. and EMI Group to allow music from all those global catalogs to be available on the new service (rumored to be out sometime this year).

In terms of strategy, this makes sense for Yahoo! The company, which has failed with many of its paid subscription offerings in recent years, will most likely supply advertising in some form with this new service to grab the revenue it hasn't been able to make headily with its monthly paid music subscription model. Just don't look for unprotected MP3s to become a core component of Yahoo!'s revenue any time soon.