I think Universal Music Group is starting to play hard ball with Apple. They refused to renew their iTunes contract and now they have announced that they Universal Music Group will sell a significant portion of its catalog without the customary copy protection software for at least the next few months.

According to the New York Times

Universal, the world’s biggest music conglomerate, said it would offer albums and songs without the software, known as digital rights management, through existing digital music retail services like RealNetworks and Wal-Mart, nascent services from Amazon.com and Google, and some artists’ Web sites.

The offer of Universal’s music under the new terms is being framed as a test, to run into January, allowing executives to study consumer demand and any effect on online piracy. A Universal decision to adopt the practice permanently would put pressure on other record companies to follow suit.

Apple however won’t be so lucky as UMG will not offer the DRM free music through iTunes.

Microsoft caved and gave UMG a cut on the Zune player revenue and UMG has been working to get a cut of the iPod revenue. This seem to be in line with the strategy of putting as much pressure on Apple as possible.

It will be interesting to see who blinks first given the importance of iTunes in digital music sales.