Are record companies blaming apple for drm?

Sounds more like they are just ticked off that Apple won't license Fairplay. So the only way they can get around dealing exclusively with Apple is to offer their music DRM-free and then it can be sold from any retailer and still played on the iPod. So it's really Apple and the iPod that are forcing record companies to consider the DRM-free route.
And yeah, that credit-card thing sounds like a really stupid idea, but trust Sony to come up with something that makes buying digital music more cumbersome...

The MusicPass idea quite frankly is......

Stupid.

Why would anyone want to go to a store, buy the card, pay for it, drive home not being able to listen to their new music, go online, download it, then burn it to a CD or transfer it to their iPod. If you buy a normal CD it doesn't have DRM when you rip it, and you have the instant gratification of being able to listen to it in your car before going home. Just another example of the record companies and their poor implementation of technology.