Bold New Move? By Wes Phillips December 9, 2006 — Record industry policy, when it comes to digital downloads, has always been to give the consumers what it wants them to have: files that may, but probably won't, work in all of their purchasers' devices.

What we're talking about is DRM (digital rights management), a set of restrictions that keep, say, files being sold on Apple's iTunes Music Store from being played on the personal digital devices manufactured by other companies—and prevent iPods from playing music downloaded from most non-Apple websites.

EMI Music is releasing individual tracks from new recordings by Norah Jones and Reliant K as unrestricted MP3 files on Yahoo's music site, which means they can be downloaded by any computer and transferred to any kind of digital device.

Sony BMG released an unrestricted MP3 of Jessica Simpson last summer, and Hollywood Records went so far as to release an entire album by Jesse McCartney as unrestricted files.

Many industry analysts see these moves as an experiment by the major labels, testing to see how sales will be affected by the release of these files "in the raw." They say the record industry is "giving the public what it wants."

I'm not so sure that's it. The record labels are sure that their business model is dying because of unlawful copying. How do I know they think that? Because just this week, Edgar Bronfman, CEO of Warner Music, was asked if his children pirated music and he said, "I'm fairly certain that they have."

That's the refrain you hear everywhere amongst the Big Four: They're all doing it—that's why we can't sell discs!.

So, why are the majors experimenting with unrestricted files? Because the only place that is successfully selling downloads is Apple's iTunes Music Store. That's what has the labels' panties in a bunch this time: The Apple tail is beginning to wag the record-company dog (and what's worse, when the industry pushed for variable pricing, Apple had the clout to say, No, case closed). That, my friends, scares the labels far more than the specter of file-sharing.

Giving the consumers what they want? Nah, once again the record industry is simply looking for somebody else to stick it to.