The mainstream music industry has finally spun off the planet and is now floating in space, operating by logic that is foreign to humans much less consumers. The arguments of just how badly the major record companies have missed the mark in assuaging music fans, while trying to adapt their ancient business models as the times have changed over the last 10 years, are rampant. Each week brings news of how one of the big boys has unveiled some ho hum scheme that’s supposed to bring them into the fold of the times. This is usually followed by news of the RIAA suing another grandmother for supposedly sharing files on a peer-to-peer network.

Apple recently began selling Digital Rights Management (DRM) free tracks on its iTunes store. The tracks come solely from British record giant EMI, one of the so-called “Big Four,” whose empire includes Capitol Records here in the U.S. The tracks are sold in Apple’s AAC format in 256kbps resolution instead of their normal iTunes offerings at half the bit rate. As it turns out, though, Apple is including a user name and email address in the files tag, which can be viewed by anyone who examines the file. And now CD trading site LALA has announced this past week it will begin selling downloads that will work on the iPod that have a “watermark” of their own.

So much for DRM free! Thanks for the trust guys, not to mention the added bonus of worrying about having my privacy violated if I lose my iPod. I mean, damn, I was going to buy a few tracks and immediately share them over the internet, and I would have gotten away with it if it weren’t for you snooping kids!

Apple has long hoped for a deal allowing it to sell DRM free songs. Until now, they have been prohibited from doing so by the agreements they have with the major labels and the RIAA that allow it to sell their music. For Apple, the reason is obvious. They are being sued in countries across Europe for not opening up its DRM technology so as to allow other companies to compete by selling DRM songs that will play on Apple’s ubiquitous iPod. Rather than opening up their technology, Steve Jobs has called upon the labels to abandon DRM. That way, music sold on any site can be played on any device. For Apple that makes all the sense in the world as it would see an increase in the sale of iPods without any real damage to its iTunes sales. EMI, well, they were just taking another blind stab at slowing they’re morbidly declining record sales, albeit with a better blade than any of the other labels have used.

It’s pathetic that this is the most progressive attempt by a major record label to adapt to the digital music revolution 10 years after it began. Music has always been on the cutting edge of popular culture, originating from the youth culture of the ‘50s and ‘60s that crossed borders and languages to unite divergent groups in the love of similar things. Music WAS the driving force before all else. A generation of youth from across the developed world could find that they indeed had something in common despite all their differences, even if it was just a love of the Beatles. Music still fulfills this role in many ways, just not so much with popular music anymore.

While some music like the independent varieties are still on the cutting edge of art and culture, the established mainstream music business has become the most technologically and culturally backward element in popular culture. The “Big Four” and their bullhorn, the RIAA, have dragged their nails in the dirt trying to resist change and, in the process, have pissed of consumers so much that they’re not buying their music anymore.