Could 2007 be the year of the 'real' music downloads?

Will 2007 go down in history as the year when DRM (digital rights management) went down the tubes as record labels finally succumbed to declining CD sales and customer complaints and started releasing music in unprotected digital form?

There have been scores of gadget fans and music fans that have waited for this for years. They don't like being faced to purchase music and then have it only work on one device or expire sometime in the future. Customers clearly want to "buy" music and own it to use on any device they want, anywhere and at anytime. Sure, Apple Computer, Inc.'s (NASDAQ:AAPL) iTunes store sells a heckuva lot of digital songs that are protected -- could they sell more with unprotected downloads, though?

The music industry may have no other choice but to release music as fully unprotected digital content that will allow consumers to use it how *they* want (imagine that) instead of being fully controlled by how the content owners want consumers to use content. You buy a song and you purchase the right from the content owner to use that material on your devices as opposed to just an iPod other digital content system. Will this happen is sales of physical media like CDs continue to fall? Will Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) and Apple have issues due to this or will both simply become conduits for buying unprotected content (just another *pipe*)?