Only with DRM-free can the digital market soar.

The download will only come of age once the consumer restrictions that DRM causes are lifted

Hardly anyone actually writes letters these days, so when somebody does it is probably worth sitting up and taking notice. The Entertainment Retailers Association's correspondence last week to the FT - which subsequently turned it into a story - hardly makes it the first organisation to publicly come out against DRM, but it is significant given some of the sector's initial reluctance towards digital and, most importantly, its relationship with the key component in all of this - the consumer.

For too long, some within the association thought they were King Canute, trying to hold back the tide of the digital revolution because it inconveniently did not suit their existing business models, even going so far as "disenfranchising" thousands of music buyers by standing in the way of their download purchases going into the main singles chart. However, this new public stance against DRM acknowledges that, for the traditional bricks-and-mortar players, this new world can be a big part of their futures, rather than their ultimate downfalls. But the conditions in which they are operating in this market are not working in their favour: it is ridiculous that we still have a market where the dominant piece of kit - the iPod - and the runaway retail leader - iTunes - do not work in tandem with their rivals' offerings.

This has to be holding back the development of the digital market, making competition between operators difficult and putting thousands off downloading, who instead are either stealing music from illegal sites or feeding their MP3 players from a guaranteed DRM-free source - the CD.

It seems no coincidence that Era has ...