In what is a very curious article from its title to almost its conclusion, a superficial reading and glance at the title may lead one to believe the 'major players' intend to begin adapting distribution to 'give the consumer what he wants.' However, perhaps the most indicative part of the article is the final paragraph about the real intention of this piece:
The trials by EMI and Yahoo are important steps in a still evolving industry, but until there is something equivalent to a mini-revolution in the music industry, do not be surprised if MP3s are still primarily excluded from music vendors in 2007.
As the numbers of songs offered by the companies listed in the article indicate (especially with the very few places that attempt to offer non-DRM'ed downloads), this is not a 'trend,' but rather an attempt by the industry to resist as much as possible, kicking and screaming all the way--just like some spoiled brat that didn't get his way. This is proven by every attempt to find new ways to DRM content, such as in Blu-ray and HD-DVD--not to mention targeting the largest (and by what we know so far by the lack of evidence against it) successful organization to date (AllOfMP3)--in hopes it can be removed from the legal distribution picture. What the industry really hopes (as the internal link inside the primary article indicates) is that consumers will engage in "impulse buying" or somehow get so "addicted" to their IPods or Zunes that they will forget all about any DRM issues. We know as regular readers of CDFreaks articles that the masses are largely ignorant of the music industry's attempts (through DRM) to force them to "pony up the dough" as many times as possible, but without really giving them a reasonably-priced song/CD without DRM. The only way a real 'revolution' will occur is if the normal "Joe Sixpack" gets informed and then protests the removal of his fair-use rights with his legal purchases. Until that time, expect the current modus operandi to continue from the music industry.
