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Warner Music Group (WMG), EMI and Vivendi's Universal Music Group have all initiated plans to drop digital rights management, and it finally spurred Sony (SNE) BMG to take the step as well, according to BusinessWeek.com.

Details of the change aren't available yet, but for sure a large portion of the music giants' catalog will be available free of DRM. Songs will be available without DRM sometime in the first quarter.

The reasoning behind using DRM software was to keep people from illegally sharing songs on peer-to-peer networks. Rather than do that though, it infuriated consumers who paid for the music by making them burn it to a CD before they could upload it to play on their chosen device. The result was the quality of the music was degraded.

"DRM tends to punish the innocent more than the guilty," says Rob Enderle, principal analyst at the Enderle Group, a technology research company. "It was hurting folks who were trying to follow the rules more than the folks who were pirating the music."

Not only will this improve good will between lovers of music and the industry, but it will allow much more flexibility in the way music can be offered by the companies, possibly resulting in much higher digital sales. We'll probably see a lot more interaction and ideas coming concerning social networks and selling  of music by the major labels in the months ahead.

This doesn't mean the end of DRM, as it will continue to be used by subscription services so customers can't continue to play songs if they quit the service; but that's a small slice of the overall industry.

As far as the major music labels go, EMI decided to go the route of offering their songs at a 30¢ premium through Apple iTunes, but it wasn't long before the DRM-free songs were selling for 99¢.

The other labels are looking to help develop a more robust, competitive market be working through Amazon (AMZN) to make them a viable music competitor to Apple (AAPL), who by far has the upper hand and is calling the shots at this time.

This strategy could work with Amazon becoming the first service to offer music from the four major labels without DRM.

Whatever happens, this is a good move by the industry and Sony BMG, albeit a late one. It'll put the onus back on finding ways to increase the selling music and not trying to retain an outdated business model.