And you thought the digital rights management debate was over - but it's not. I mean, firstly while all four majors have said they will sell DRM-free music through Amazon's US download store, the DRM-free revolution is yet to actually roll out around the world. Plus DRM is still very much part of the mobile music sector, which is why it's being discussed this week, it being the never dull Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
Leading the debate was Real Networks' VP Global Product Management Larry Moores, who called on a la carte download services in the mobile space to overcome the current situation where songs bought via the services only work on a handful of handsets - ie the same old DRM issue that is now being slowly overcome in the online download space.
According to Billboard, Moores told delegates: "DRM remains important for subscription models but the issue is when you buy [an a la carte] track from Verizon or Vodafone it's very difficult to get it to play on something else. If you want to fully enjoy the experience [of that track on all devices] you have to buy it three times. Well, the market's voted [against that] by stealing music".
Brian Levy, a CTO at Hewlett-Packard, agreed the lack of interoperability in the mobile music space was an issue, but didn't think dropping DRM completely was the solution - though technology companies rarely do think dropping DRM is a solution, given DRM technologies give them a hold over the content companies. He called on the tech sector to come up with solutions that made digital music more user friendly, but without dropping DRM. He said: "We as an industry haven't developed formats that are transferable between networks. We've made a world of complexity and then say we want the people who create the content to take the risk [by getting rid of DRM]. It's our job to make this insanely simple".