When the music industry recently did an apparent about face and started embracing DRM free music on sites like Amazon and other locations, but NOT Apple's iTunes Store (in most cases), I think I saw a very different picture starting to forming from the one the industry may have wanted to paint.
From an industry that regularly sues children and grandparents thousands of dollars for each illegally downloaded song, to installing rootkit technology without user's knowledge or consent (and then lying about what that technology was doing), I no longer tend to trust anything they say. If they tell me the sky's blue, I'm still going outside to check for myself.
So from my viewpoint this whole move to DRM free music on other sites like Amazon seems less like they are trying to give music fans what they really want (truly portable and device agnostic music) and more like they are just trying to break the monopoly that iTunes has on the market. Once the monopoly is broken, expect those song prices to go up, and maybe even a lag between when full albums are available in digital format as opposed to CD format.
A few years ago when the music publishers wanted to raise the cost of songs on iTunes; the newest hit songs would be around $1.49, while "golden oldies" would be less than 99 cents. Apple fought back and as we can see today, the pricing hasn't changed... but the relationship between Apple and the record companies did.
While this recent article on the roadblocks record labels are erecting against new digital music initiatives doesn't confirm my doom and gloom scenario, it does seem like another brick in the wall, as Pink Floyd might say.
