No suprise here. If you follow my posts around the web and at panels and in lists, you will see I have been saying for 2 years that DRM-free MP3s are a bust.

Why? IMHO because users associate MP3 with FREE. Furthermore, users don’t really care about DRM en masse. Yes some very technical writers and bloggers and the technorati slashdotters of the world don’t like DRM. I don’t like kimchi. What I do is avoid eating kimchi as a result. I think it’s clear that people that don’t like DRM can get DRM-free music anywhere they want however it’s hard to say how long these DRM-free offerings might remain viable.

Based on the LA Times Story titled: “Universal Music and Virgin Media, striking out with MP3s?” I would say that the answer is NOT LONG.

With Zune offering the ZunePass for $14.99 a month for content from all the majors… WITH DRM…. and Universal and Virgin indicating they might be headed towards an all you can eat model I suspect the wheels are about to come off the whole DRM-free MP3 thang. It always was just an experiment and just an excuse to try and sell content to the iPod.

14:59:00 and counting.