Sure, some people are really excited that all four major labels have started dropping digital-rights management from their online offerings. But according to Wired, these baby steps don’t necessarily mean that music fans (at least, the ones who care enough to buy before they try) are going to be awash in MP3s starting tomorrow; in fact, the overwhelming majority of major-label wares that are still out there are locked up in some sort of copy protection. And to hear Wired–and the COO of Napster, whose company just unlocked its downloads in an effort to remind people that in 2000 it was the place to be for your unauthorized song-by-song downloads–it’s all Apple’s fault!

Still, more than 80 percent of the digital music market remains encoded with DRM, despite the announcements from the big labels. That’s because of the highly popular iTunes Store, and Apple’s iPod and iPhone. Those devices, with more than 100 million units sold, only play music protected by Apple’s proprietary FairPlay DRM technology, or music that isn’t protected at all. Apple, since 2003, has sold more than 3 billion music downloads, capturing more than 80 percent of the market.

Apple chairman Steve Jobs has repeatedly balked at licensing FairPlay for use on competing download services or devices — meaning music companies had to choose between using iTunes or going DRM-free if they wanted the songs to play on the all-important iPods. The industry stood by and allowed most of its music-download sales to come from Apple, but that is slowly changing.

Napster, the online music service that nearly a decade ago was synonymous with music piracy, announced Monday it was looking to strike unrestricted licensing arrangements with the Big Four. Right now, the subscription-based service’s millions of downloads are not compatible with the iPod, which Warner chief Edgar Bronfman Jr. in September labeled the “default device” in the digital music scene.

“Talks are currently in progress with the labels,” said Napster’s Allen. He said the company anticipates selling unprotected music from the Big Four sometime in the second quarter.

“The move to MP3s is certainly a step in clearing up some of the dysfunction, and Apple’s hermetically sealed proprietary system,” Allen said.

As opposed to the hermetically sealed proprietary system that all of iTunes’ competitors used–I mean, shoot, I would have loved to have at least tried some of the formerly PlaysForSure-protected services out there, but I was constantly told “No Macs Allowed.” It got to be like that scene in Snoopy Come Home where Snoopy tries to visit Charlie Brown in the hospital after a while, only without that low baritone voice singing at me because I couldn’t play any music. So by the time some services did open their door to my operating system, I’d given up^*.

The more I read music-industry types whining about Apple and iTunes and FairPlay and how iTunes has unfairly locked up the market through the dual crimes of making a well-designed player and a smooth shopping experience for people who want to buy music (compare the steps required in redeeming a Platinum Music Pass vs. those required to buy the same album from iTunes), the more I feel like executives are stubbornly refusing to listen to the old maxim “turnabout is fair play”–pun not really intended there, although if that was the intent when that system was first named back in the day, I have to say that it’s kind of genius. Innovating better is the answer–not taking your ball and going home, or complaining about how unfair life is. And yes, I realize I sound like an Apple fangirl by saying this, but to hear these executives complain about their companies being “locked out” from iTunes is even more ludicrous when you think about how a chunk of the userbase (including people who make music!) has been consistently held back from consuming music legally thanks to the limitations of the products they’ve been hawking all these years.

Despite Move to MP3s, DRM Will Haunt Record Labels [Wired]

^* The exception: Rhapsody, mainly because it works on my TiVo in a pretty amazing way. But that’s a subject for another post (once my TiVo gets hooked back up).