The Times Online reported today Warner Music Group is prepared to up its bid by £100 million ($197 million).

"The size of the payment reflects the confidence of Edgar Bronfman, Warner’s chairman, that a £4.6 billion merger with EMI will now be approved by competition regulators. He is prepared to offer investors a financial inducement to weaken EMI’s argument that they should accept a lower offer from private equity."

Just yesterday, The Times Online reported that WMG would be "unlikely" to increase its previous bid of 260p per share. That article claimed WMG had emerged as the most likely winner of the four companies interested in EMI (WMG and three private equity groups).

In recent weeks, there have been reports that the EU would probably approve a WMG acquistion of EMI. What I'm wondering is what this would do to EMI's foray into sales of unprotected downloads. WMG and the other majors do not see eye to eye (or say they say publicly) with EMI on the matter of DRM.