The remarks, made by CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz during an interview with newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, described a service where downloads would be compatible with all players, including iPods.

It’s the iPod compatibility linked with a subscription service that caught everyone’s attention. Basically, only two kinds of digital music tracks are compatible with iPods – songs purchased from the iTunes Music Store that are protected by Apple’s proprietary FairPlay digital rights management system, and songs not protected by any DRM, such as the MP3s sold by Amazon MP3.

However, subscription services use DRM technology to limit download playability to the length of the subscription, meaning that any songs downloaded under a subscription plan stop playing once the subscription expires.

In other words, Schmidt-Holtz’s remarks about iPod compatibility hints that either his label has made a FairPlay licensing deal with Apple or his company’s subscription service won’t use DRM protection.

But current subscription services rely on DRM technology in order to be, well, subscription services. Plus, Schmidt-Holtz also remarked that some tracks obtained through the subscription service may still be playable after the subscription expires, thus indicating that some tracks will cease to play after subscription cancellation.

But the iPod remark aside, you just gotta wonder if people will go for a label-operated subscription service. Unless, of course, the label running the service obtains permission from other labels to also include their music. After all, people are fans of bands and artists, not labels and boardrooms.

On the other hand, Schmidt-Holtz merely remarked about what his company is planning and the CEO did not volunteer any details about the subscription service. For all anyone knows, Sony BMG could be hatching the greatest subscription service ever offered. We’ll just have to wait to find out.

The Sony half of Sony BMG has been down this road before. It was only a few years ago when Sony operated its own online music store – Sony Connect – in support of its digital Walkman music players.

Neither Sony Connect nor the label’s proprietary copy protection, ATRAC, caught on with music fans already used to downloading unprotected MP3s or songs protected by Apple’s FairPlay or Microsoft’s DRM, and the label discontinued the online store in 2007.