Ty Roberts, CTO of Gracenote—the company that runs CDDB, among other endeavors—said at a conference on DRM this week that record labels are "about to cave in the next six months" when it comes to DRM and downloads, giving credence to Jobs' claim that half of iTunes tracks will be available DRM-free by the end of the year. At the same time, he's not sure that it "would be a good thing for the digital content industry in the long term."

Paul Jessop, CTO of the RIAA, told Ars after the talk that the labels could "all fold tomorrow, [or] they could all hold out." We're glad that that's sorted out. Nonetheless, the pressure's on—from consumers, from Apple, and recently, from EMI, so holding out's looking less and less feasible if the labels want to get their product out there and into our ears. – Matt Buchanan

Exec: Music labels "about to cave in the next six months" on DRM [Ars Technica]
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