"Chasing Cars," Brought To You By Dodge?

This idea of offering free music with ads attached has been swirling around for years -- and still hasn't worked. There was Spiralfrog, which hasn't gotten off the ground. And then some of their execs just this week founded a new ad-supported music outfit, Rebel Digital.

Another one hasn't gotten much attention yet, possibly because it comes out of London. But it's well-funded and has the backing of RVC, formerly the venture arm of Reuters. It's called We7.

I've been e-mailing with RVC's John Taysom about it. It seems that the difference with We7 is that the ads would be targeted. If you download a song -- for free -- and keep it in a playlist, the ad would change each time you go online and the system can reconnect with We7's server. So the ad would change each time you listen. If you burn a CD, the ads stick to the songs, and then you'd hear the same ad each time.

Now, Taysom says, the trick is to convince labels that "DRM really is a hinderence, and that advertising will make more money for them for at least parts of their catalog than pay to own." EMI's move to drop DRM will help, but it's still going to be a tough sell to the mainstream recording industry.