Zune Thoughts: Big Wigs Talk DRM, Pass the Buck Around Some More

"Day 2 of the Digital Music Forum kicked off with an interesting panel discussion on "Device and Format Wars." Which basically means DRM, right? So, as you can guess, the conversation had a lot in common with yesterday's DRM discussion. Today, eMusic CEO David Pakman played the "why-not-just-drop-DRM?" guy, and execs from Microsoft's Zune team, MusicGremlin, Zing, Click and Buy, and Sonific represented various points along the DRM spectrum... The panel is moderated by Jupiter VP and Senior Analyst David Card, who starts us off with some stats to chew on: Legal music downloads in 2006 brought in around $800 million. Subscription music services generated between $150 million and $180 million. So all told, digital music in the US is just under a billion dollars as a market. That's a heckuva lot of Fergie, people."

An interesting panelled conversation, even if it doesn't conclude or resolve anything and pretty much goes nowhere. For the umpteenth time, companies trying to make money from the sales of digital music (whether piecemeal or via subscription model) blame Apple for having set the tone for music sales. I can't say agree. I really believe DRM would still be around even if there never was an iPod. I also don't believe the subscription model is something everyone's dying for. It might be great of those top-40 listeners who are always picking up the latest hits, but for those of us that have had a set music-listening pattern for some time, it's not very viable. So what do you think? Is it all Apple's fault? Would you opt for a subscription from iTunes if they offered it? And would it change the face of digital music sales? I'll start off by answering no to all three questions...