... just not direct to a mobile network

So Nokia has failed to persuade the mobile networks to stock it’s “Comes With Music” phones, notably the

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Comes with DRM Time Bomb

I’m a huge consumer of music – have been one way or another all my life – and I’m old enough to remember buying music in Vinyl (before it became cool again), cassette tape, CD, MiniDisc (remember that?) and now of course I buy most of it via download sites – MUCH prefering MP3 to the complexities and frustrations that DRM has inevitably brought to the process. So I come with baggage.

The only good thing about DRM (and there’s not room here to talk about all the bad stuff) is the opportunity for subscription services – rental of your content. And Nokia’s offering here is an interesting move ahead on what the likes of Napster and Vodafone (amongst others) already offer: this time the DRM is linked directly to the purchase of the device – so you buy your pay-as-you-go nokia phone, and you can download ‘all you can eat’. Then, 12 months later, the bomb goes off. You need to go out and buy another phone.

Neat trick: Nokia just turned the PAYG market into an annual subscription, of sorts.

D’you think they have people standing outside schools flogging these things?

Personally, Ihave an eclectic mixture of devices: a Sony Walkman music phone, an iPod Touch, a couple of other mp3 players – and I like my stuff to be playable whereever… so I MUCH prefer my music in MP3 format, thank you very much. Thanks to the mix of eMusic, 7Digital and Play.com, *most* of what I want to buy comes through in MP3 (legally!). I’m just waiting for (most of) Universal and for Sony to get with the programme… Come on guys!

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