It was bound to happen. In the era of iPods and MP3 blogs, compact discs are about as useless as dial-up modems. This past Monday at an conference in Aspen, Colorado, Warner Music chairman and CEO Edgar Bronfman Jr. declared that his company’s future would lie in the tenuous concept of an "e-label," an online means of distribution that will have e-label artists release three songs at a time, rather than entire albums every couple of years. And, perhaps most important, the bands (Green Day, Hot Hot Heat, and Madonna are in Warner’s stable) will retain all the copyrights to and ownership of their master recordings.

Nicholas Reville, director of Downhill Battle, thinks the major labels are ready to crumble. "There’s just no real place for giant corporate music companies in the real-level online market," says Reville, whose Worcester-based nonprofit has been working to reform major-label monopolies since 2003. "If things keep moving in that direction, then why would you need these layers and layers of management?"

"I don’t think this is meant to interest developing artists who desperately need marketing support," theorizes Newbury Comics CEO Mike Dreese. "It’s of interest to bands like Radiohead whose income comes from different streams and [who don’t] necessarily want to tie up their musical rights for more than a couple of years." Nevertheless, Dreese is aware that with the death of the CD, the notion of brick-and-mortar record chains is also in danger. "We are no longer gatekeepers of access to content, and that’s a tough change," he admits. "That’s [also] what’s so exciting: consumers are going to rule the world. It’s a matter of everybody else recognizing that reality and saying, ‘What can we provide?’"