Epic Mobile News

Newsletter Subscription
Subscribe to our Dynamic News Content Feed Subscribe to our RSS Feed

LG and Prada Team Up For Third Phone
The phone maker has joined with the fashion label once again to create a shiny new handset.

New Battery 10x Capacity 10x Charge Speed
Scientists have redesigned a lithium-ion battery to allow it to charge ten times faster and hold ten times the charge of a standard cell.

BBM Music Busts Into Britain
RIM releases the BBM Music service for a hungry British crowd.

 

Expert describes mobile music subscription as being a false dawn

Expert describes mobile music subscription as being a false dawn Mobile music has been described as being a false dawn by an expert who is cynical about whether the service will lead to a reduction in the number of illegal downloads.

Nokia's new Comes with Music package allows consumers the chance to buy a pay-as-you-go handset for a one-off charge, which will then let them download an unlimited amount of Nokia's music library.

The Nokia 5310 will be the first phone to feature the new service and will launch on 16 October.

Joe Minihane, the online news editor of Stuff.tv, a website which provides a guide to the world of gadgets, thinks that people are getting pretty bored of subscription which "isn't really a big deal".

Mr Minihane believes that subscription services are "good for kids if they want to grab a few songs" but warned that people are still going to steal music.

He said: "After the 18-month contract with Nokia is up you will only be able to listen to those tracks you have downloaded on your phone or on your computer.

"Basically you won't be able to transfer them — they are digitally shackled to your computer."

The expert believes that MP3 downloads are the way forward as you can download them and copy them as many times as you like.

"It's the way music spreads," he said, adding that such downloads, and not mobile music subscription, will kill off CDs.

The way that Nokia's Comes with Music downloads are shackled to one handset and one PC differs from Apple's iTunes service which licences its music from record labels leaving customers free to transfer music files to other iPods.

Phone companies will make a cash payment to record companies from every Nokia handset sold with the Comes with Music technology. The payment to record companies from each hand set is thought to be greater than the average person would spend on CDs in a year, hence the record company's participation in the scheme.

Bigwig record execs are pinning their hopes on customers not being greedy with the system. A survey from Denmark recently showed that people chose only to download a modest 25 tracks on average.

Industry News posted on 10 October 2008

Have your say - Post a new Comment!

Heading:
Comment:
Anonymous: