It’s always interesting to see the disruptors get disrupted. Apple disrupted the music industry with iPods and iTunes. But for music consumers, the model still stinks. It places too many limits on what you can do with YOUR music.

Now Yahoo! is experimenting with music downloads that do not include piracy protection.

If that works and grows, if consumers can safely download straight MP3s from a trusted source at a reasonable price, it could provide serious competition to Apple.

The main reason I don’t buy music from iTunes or any other similar service is I can’t do what I want with the music. When I own a song, I like to have it on my hard drive, my iPod and on a CD I can play in my car. The best format for me is MP3. I want all my music in MP3 (I know there are some formats now that provide “better” sound quality, but MP3 seems good enough for me). I don’t buy many CDs any more simply because I own so much music already (500 or so LPs, 300 or so CDs, plus XM radio … I have a lot of stuff to listen to that I haven’t gotten tired of yet … but if I could legally download a single song here and there and then do with it as I pleased, I would be happy.)