From: "Rich Gauszka" 

except for Microsoft "We don't have any specific announcements on our
DRM-free business strategy at this time"

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2007/05/drms_demise_accelerates.ht
ml

This morning's column tries to get at the significance of all these moves.
I think this is huge: One of the recording industry's core beliefs is
disintegrating almost overnight.

Not everybody in the business believed this idea in the first place,
though. People at many independent labels and smaller music-download sites
have long thought otherwise--as I was reminded in some interviews
yesterday, most of which didn't make the column.

"The fewer restrictions, the merrier," said Kim Coletta, founder
of D.C.-based DeSoto Records. DeSoto's catalogue is available on
iTunes--Coletta said it will soon be offered in DRM-free form--but has also
long been sold as regular MP3 files at the Download Punk site.

Unlike most major labels, DeSoto has already made the transition from
physical sales to downloads. "The amount of revenue I receive from my
digital sales far surpasses what I receive from CDs," Coletta said.
She's seen this in her own daily life, too: "I teach at a boys middle
school three days a week. These kids, they don't buy CDs at all--they
either steal music or buy it digitally."

Alec Bourgeois, publicist for D.C.'s Dischord Records, voiced similar
thoughts. "We don't have a problem at all with making it more
accessible to people," he said of Dischord's music. But he wasn't
necessarily a fan of Apple's initiative, simply because it would involve
raising the per-song price: "We'd rather keep music a little
cheaper."

..

My guess is that Yahoo will be the next big store to make this move. A
spokeswoman forwarded this comment from Yahoo Music general manager Ian
Rogers after my deadline last night:

  We have long advocated for the end of DRM-encrypted music and predicted
earlier this year that half of our catalogue would be DRM-free by the end
of the year. We're talking to all of the major labels about the
possibilities but can't comment on the specifics of the discussions. And
what about Microsoft, which has put more effort into copy-control software
than almost anybody else? The company didn't sound quite so enthusiastic in
a statement from Zune general manager Chris Stephenson sent by a publicist
yesterday evening:

  DRM will continue to play an important role in the music business,
especially with the growth of subscription services and other types of
discovery mechanisms. We don't have any specific announcements on our
DRM-free business strategy at this time, but testing new business models is
a key to unlocking the future of digital entertainment.

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