In a post about Apple's anti-DRM stance, BusinessWeek.com's Peter Burrows mentioned a test being run by one of the major labels. The test is comparing the sales of a number of download stores and looking for evidence of DRM's impact on sales.

...one major label has been running a test in recent months with around a dozen big music retailers and online music services to gauge the importance of DRM on purchase decisions.

I’m told these include Amazon, Wal-Mart, BestBuy and Napster (before it was purchased by BestBuy); Amazon denies knowledge of any such test, while the others didn't respond to my inquiries to confirm their participation. What matters is that so far, the results suggest that DRM isn't high on consumers' list of concerns. "DRM-free sales are very good at Amazon and Walmart,” says one source familiar with the test. “But DRM-enabled products are doing just about as well. It could be that we’re just in transition. But there doesn’t seem to be this overwhelming consumer demand for everything MP3.”

Ignoring the fact that Amazon.com's MP3 store, as well as eMusic, would not exist with DRM, let's ponder what would motivate a multi-month test such as this. This label is not convinced MP3 files facilitate growth and offer greater competition to iTunes. There must be a belief that in the future a better DRM technology can offer the necessary interoperability and consumer confidence. And I'd bet there's a fear that unprotected MP3 files lead to increased sharing and piracy (which may ignore a net benefit from dropping DRM).

I'll refrain from reading too much into this bit of news. There's nothing wrong with analyzing sales patterns. The main question is if this test was born out of curiosity or desire for a policy change.