Major labels need to start freeing up the audio files for their artists to new distribution schemes very soon as major artists are becoming indies and indies are taking over. Pretty soon it will actually not matter if they get on board or not. The major labels will be holding a dust collecting back catalog of musical artifacts.

Let me explain...
Gerd Leonhard's company Sonific, recently released an obvious FaceBook music application. We at Project Opus were going to release a very similar FaceBook application for our music library in July. We decided not to for ONE VERY GOOD REASON:
Our library is primarily indie artists, just like Sonific's. Indie artists are - out of necessity - embracing new distribution models and shunning traditional label contracts. Presently major labels don't dig our distribution models or technologies.

So given the circumstances, searching and browsing for music on Project Opus, Beta Records, or Sonific, even with a library of 100,000 or more INDIE songs can FEEL empty if it does not hold a significant amount of KNOWN music for a consumer to "latch on to". Admittedly is a really poor consumer experience. The low uptake on Sonfic's application is evident of not the worth of the application but the lack of KNOWN content on their site. So, we chose not to release the Opus Player into FaceBook - for now.

However, new distribution models from sites like Project Opus and Sonific will actually be making a great deal of sense very soon and begin to start attracting more and more users. The music world is changing very rapidly to suit these models:
Major acts are jumping ship and becoming INDEPENDENT. Radiohead is going it alone. But it's not just indie-minded acts like Radiohead that are going out on their own. Even the Queen of music's traditional model, Madonna, is striking out on her own with a new type of deal.

Music services like Yahoo! are not willing to play by their rules anymore. There is simply no value in selling restricted-experience-stripped audio files for anyone who is not selling iPods as part of the deal.
As Dave Winer has posted time and time again, (I'll paraphrase) if you are going to bring something to market, figure out how other people can make money from it first. By doing that you ensure you have a valuable product or service that will be consumed, used, and promoted by others. Then you can figure out how YOU can make money from your highly used (meaning valued by customers) service or product." The man is as right as right can be.

As established artists shift to new distribution models outside of major label control or influence, the more the major labels will become irrelevant. That time is much much closer than the RIAA or the industry thinks. Knowing this fate, don't you think it would be better for artists, fans, as well Sony, EMI, Warner, Universal, et al. shareholders to see the industry embrace progressive distribution models around revenue sharing that are not handcuffed by DRM NOW.

...or soon it won't matter.