Digital music companies want to rid their music of DRM, and a few of them are aggressively pursuing the MP3 format. Reuters reported today that Ted Cohen, former digital chief at EMI Music and now a consultant, has been hired by P2P company Limewire to lobby the major music groups. Limewire, currently in settlement talks with the majors, wants to charge $1 per download but does not want DRM. Cohen's job is to get labels to agree to a six-month trial period.

Yahoo! Music David Goldberg has been very outspoken in his opposition of DRM. His perseverance has paid off twice. To date, Yahoo has scored three major label MP3 releases.

In the article, BigChampagne's Jeff Garland predicts final 2006 results will be so bad that labels will "have a different conversation" with digital music companies. I don't think the final results will be that bad. Gartner's Mike McGuire points to a more likely cause for concern: an expected softening in ringtone growth over the next 18 months.

For majors to embrace MP3, they will need to feel that all other options for growth have been exhausted. It has been such an enemy over the years that the MP3 is probably going to be seen as a last resort. Frankly, I think there's still a lot of room for competition in the digital space. iTunes has not been properly challenged. I have a hard time believing the string of sad iPod opponents and iTunes challengers represent the best in innovation. There's still room for improvement. Labels may want to see how mobile-MP3 player convergence plays out this year before reluctantly asking the MP3 format to bail them out.