Napster first started off as a free-P2P music service before being shutdown, then brought back later by Roxio as a legal DRM based music service. Now the Swedish wireless technology provider Ericsson has signed a deal with Napster to bring Napster's music service to mobile phones and aims go live in Europe within the next 12 months and possibly the US within a year.
While some providers may plan to limit the customer to only get music on their phone by purchasing it, this deal will allow music to be either transferred from PC or purchased by wireless. The service is expected to be compatible with all major manufacturers' handsets that support DRM. Ericsson is also interested in getting mobile operators to support its technology rather than deal with handset manufacturers. They aim to do this by offering the carriers a choice of revenue methods such as by the download or subscription like their current service or even streaming.
Finally, Ericsson wants consumers to be free to purchase their music on the phone or PC and freely exchange their music between their PC and handset. For example, consumers could purchase music at home and carry it about or vice versa. However, this does present a problem in that if music is charged at a higher fee to purchase directly on the mobile, consumers would likely stick to buying their music at home instead.
|
Stockholm-based Ericsson said the service will go live in Europe within the next 12 months, and will be offered to carriers in Europe, Asia, Latin America, and North America at the same time. Ericsson also predicts the service will be available in the U.S. within the next year. Unlike other recent announcements of music on cell phones, such as Motorola's deal with Apple to allow music from Apple's iTunes service to be transferred from a PC to an upcoming phone, the deal permits wireless music downloads as well as transfers from PCs. The service also enables other phone makers to get in on the action by working on mobile phones from all major manufacturers that support content protected by digital rights management technology. Indeed, the announcement didn't even mention Ericsson's phone-making partner, Sony. Read the full story here. |
At the moment, it is quite amazing how much stuff manufacturers are cramping into a phone. Originally the main purpose of a mobile phone was to allow one to make and receive calls on the move. Now, the high end phones can function as a digital organiser, digital camera, MP3 player, mobile web browser, handheld games console, radio and flash light; just to name a few. However, convenience also comes at a hefty price as the operators exploit these features by charging quite a lot to make use of some of these features. On the other hand, there are still many consumers such as the older generation who simply want a plain mobile phone that does no more than support phone calls and possibly text messages.
With such a high price on ring-tones (I've seen up to €5 per track in some cases), it will be really interesting to see what they charge for full songs. If Ericsson does succeed in allowing consumers to freely transfer music between their PC and phone, I could not imagine many people willing to fork out more than the usual 99c a track just to get their song on the move. Then again, with ring-tones selling so well despite their price, it will make full length songs look like a bargain to some.
Source: RED Herring
