From a New York Times report about goings-on at the MIDEM music industry conference:
Executives of several technology companies meeting here at Midem, the annual global trade fair for the music industry, said over the weekend that at least one of the four major record companies could move toward the sale of unrestricted digital files in the MP3 format within months.Most independent record labels already sell tracks digitally compressed in the MP3 format, which can be downloaded, e-mailed or copied to computers, cellphones, portable music players and compact discs without limit.
The independents see providing songs in MP3 partly as a way of generating publicity that could lead to future sales.
For the major recording companies, however, selling in the MP3 format would be a capitulation to the power of the Internet, which has destroyed their control over the worldwide distribution of music.
Link. About the image: Here's a 2005 BoingBoing post about Twink, the toy piano band. A number of their tunes are available online as MP3s.
