I was over at the Apple website and happened to notice a letter from Steve Jobs on the homepage about music and DRM. The letter explores the future of music DRM and the possibilities for Apple and the music industry in general. To sum it up in a paragraph (from the letter itself):

Much of the concern over DRM systems has arisen in European countries. Perhaps those unhappy with the current situation should redirect their energies towards persuading the music companies to sell their music DRM-free. For Europeans, two and a half of the big four music companies are located right in their backyard. The largest, Universal, is 100% owned by Vivendi, a French company. EMI is a British company, and Sony BMG is 50% owned by Bertelsmann, a German company. Convincing them to license their music to Apple and others DRM-free will create a truly interoperable music marketplace. Apple will embrace this wholeheartedly.

From my point of view there can only be two reasons for this letter. Apple is getting tired of maintaining their DRM system and getting a lot of bad press about "locking people into the iPod" and they want to put pressure on the music industry to make changes. The other possibility is that the music industry has already approved music without DRM and we are going to start seeing a DRM-free music store very soon. In the case of the latter it would seem that the music industry has come to the realization that DRM doesn't work and never will so why waste time, money and most importantly, potential sales on a system thats doomed to failure.

I believe this could be the beginning of the end for DRM and that is very exciting news!