It has been over a year since Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple, called for the ‘Big 3′ to stop attaching Digital Rights Management, or DRM, limitation to music. A new contract between Sony BMG, Universal, Warner Music and iTunes might just do the trick.

In a move to limit the influence of iTunes on the sales numbers, over the years the big three supplied iTunes with DRM limited music while supplying open rights to other outlets. But the time has come for the unabated and ever growing influence of Apple’s iTunes in the music marketplace to show its strength.

The BBC reports that at the Macworld conference in San Francisco Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide product marketing, Phil Schiller, said in his keynote address that after contract renegotiations ‘[s]tarting today, 8 million songs will be DRM free and by the end of this quarter, all 10 million songs will be DRM free.’

However as we all know, music is not the only thing iTunes exploits. Videos are still rights protected and so are audiobooks purchased via iTunes, thanks to supplier Audible, making access to files on other machines than the one that downloaded the file impossible. Unfortunately, the wishes of Apple CEO Steve Jobs for a DRM free iTunes store will have to wait to be granted as Apple just renewed their exclusive audiobook contract with DRM-holist Audible. The rights protection is mandatory for files to be sold on Audible and by extension iTunes, even if it goes against the wishes of the publisher and author of the work.

As Cory Doctorow rightly questions; ‘if DRM is so foul that it can’t be borne when it comes to music sales, why is it acceptable for other kinds of media in the iTunes store?’

Luckily, there are ways around DRM, even if they are somewhat elaborate and might be on the more shady side of the sun. Let me just say that any audio that is relayed from memory to speakers can be recorded in the process. And if one does not have the patience for this, there are always the New Media heroes such as Mr. Doctorow and the good people over at Podiobooks and the heroes of Old Media over at LibriVox, who will supply you with DRM-free audiobooks to your heart’s desire.