On Monday the four major music labels introduced a new physical music format called slotMusic, a microSD card preloaded with music that can play on cell phones, PCs, and some MP3 players.

The slotMusic cards, which were developed by SanDisk, the inventor of the microSD memory card, will be available for the holiday season at retailers Best Buy and Wal-Mart as well as online stores.

The music labels–Universal, EMI, Sony BMG, and Warner Music–clearly have not given up on the idea of a physical disk to replace the nearly dead music CD.

The digital music revolution and the emergence of music download  sites have crushed traditional CD sales.

“The industry is trying to come up with a better way of delivering music to people that they can control,” Yankee Group analyst Carl Howe said. “This will be a niche distribution method in places where there is poor 3G network connectivity.”

The music industry has little to lose with this its latest effort to mitigate its revenue losses from illegal downloading and the transfer of music from one device to another.

The industry’s use of digital rights management, copy protection software used in MP3 files, failed because of its widespread unpopularity. Before that its heavy-handed use of copyright litigation garnered the industry immense bad press.