Seth’s got a great post up today, Music Lessons, which suggests 14 lessons the music industry should learn. Included in this is the following very wise statement:

The biggest opportunity for the music business is to combine permission with subscription

Anyhow, today’s the day that Sony BMG announced they are going DRM-free, but with a couple of catches:

1. You have to visit a physical store to get a plastic card for a specific album on which is contained a code
2. You then go home and visit an online store, enter the code and get your album

Funny.. ‘cos if you’re at the store, you could just buy the CD. Seth says, in Understand the power of digital:

Compare [digital] to hassling for a ride, driving to the mall, finding the album in question, finding the $14 to pay for it and then driving home.

Sony’s DRM-free system is even more hassle than that.

Update: These cards first hit US stores on January 15, when a whole 37 albums will be available via this amazing mechanism.