This image was lost some time after publication.

Setting aside the weirdness of this supposedly real image used to illustrate the story, a Jupiter Research report from December-January found little support for DRM among European music execs. The data is marginally interesting, as it presaged Steve Jobs's "Thoughts on Music" thing. But without seeing the full data ($750, anyone?) you can't really tell which kinds of execs said what. A few breakout stats are worth examining.

Among all record labels 48% of all executives thought ending DRM would boost download sales - though this was 58% at the larger labels. Outside the record labels 73% of those questioned thought dropping DRM would be a boost for the whole market.

Not surprising that worker bees at major labels would cling more tenaciously to their DRM. More telling is this:

Among all those questioned, 70% believed that the future of downloadable music lay in making tracks play on as many different players as possible. But 40% believed it would take concerted government or consumer action to bring this about.

In other words, the music biz side is not going to drop DRM unless forced to. I'd be curious to see if there's been any shift in music exec opinion after the recent debate. I'm betting it's the opposite, if anything, as the major labels crack the whip of DRM orthodoxy among their ranks.