Universal Tests DRM-Free Tunes

Could DRM be making an exit? Universal Music Group recently announced that it will sell DRM-free MP3s through a variety of vendors, including Amazon, through January 2008, as an experiment. One place you won’t be able to get the unencumbered music tracks, though, is iTunes. Universal says it’s using Apple’s store as a control group, but we think the test could prove whether it’s possible to break Apple’s dominance over digital distribution. Universal will use digital watermarks to identify songs that have been downloaded via the service; the watermarks won’t contain a unique user identifier but will presumably be used to see which of the songs are shared by P2P users.
We hope Universal’s experiment will convince the company that it’s more profitable to ensure fair use than it is to treat its customers like criminals.