New Nokia Phones Come with One Year of Unlimited Music Downloads
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Nokia has partnered with Universal Music to offer unlimited music downloads for one year on phones bundled with its new Ovi Web-services platform. The two companies are the largest in their respective industries (in terms of sales) and plan to release this package in time for Christmas. The service is called “Come With Music” and, according to a statement by Nokia, “will allow users to keep the music after their yearly subscription charge expires.”
Universal artists include U2, Rihanna, and Amy Winehouse among others. But the deal isn’t exclusive, as Nokia is in discussion with other music giants about getting more music on board with the offering. According to Anssi Vanjoki, executive vice president and general manager for Nokia, the company has “…set out to create the music experience that people are telling us they are looking for — all the music they want in the form of unlimited downloads to their mobile device and PC.”
Nokia believes, much like Apple, that music via cellphones is a booming market. Just last year Nokia bought music portal Loudeye for $60 million, which it used to create the foundation of this multimedia platform. And music is only one facet of the overall plan, which includes offering consumers more options on their phones, such as gaming, maps, and social networking. Whatever it might be, it’s always nice to see more competition coming after the iPhone.
*Update* It looks like this was too good to be true. The concept is moving in the right direction, but the execution is lacking. That is, even though you can keep all your music after the one year subscription is over, it will be heavily DRM’ed and won’t be compatible with your iPod or Zune.
Related Links: Nokia Phones Buy Ringtones Cellphone Accessories
1 Comment 
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January 2nd, 2008 at 3:32 pm
[...] Robb Dunewood wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptNokia has partnered with Universal Music to offer unlimited music downloads for one year on phones bundled with its new Ovi Web-services platform. The two companies are the largest in their respective industries (in terms of sales) and … [...]