Thanks to Jack for this post. USA Today writer Andrew Kantor comments on reports that digital music sales are in decline. He denies that digital sales are dropping, citing a Nielson SoundScan report that claims digital sales have grown 67% from 2005, but points out that digital music sales are still a drop in the bucket compared to CD sales and to online piracy.

He goes on to state that the reason that piracy is so common is not simply that people don't want to pay for music, but rather that they want to have control over the music they pay for. Kantor compares the use of DRMs and proprietary formats to the early days of the recording industry when companies used record formats that were only compatible with specific players. The result of which, he claims, was poor sales.

There are some services, he writes, that offer digital music sales without copy control measures, but the major labels have not signed on to these services.

What do you think? Are DRMs and other copy-control methods necessary for the industry to protect itself? Or would opening up to DRM-free formats increase the viability of online music sales as a major form of revenue?