Nokia Signs 'Comes With Music' Deal with Sony BMG

Until recently, Universal Music Group (UMG) was the only major record label to sign up with Nokia's cell phone music service, Comes With Music. Now, Sony BMG has inked a deal to provide its large music catalog via subscription download. Nokia's strategy is to bundle a year's subscription with the purchase of a new cell phone; after that, you can either pay a subscription or purchase a new phone.

"But what happens to all that music I've downloaded, do I lose it?" The good news is that although DRM copy protection will be employed, you will have the luxury of keeping what has been downloaded after the subscription period ends; you'll also be able to transfer the music to your computer. The bad news is that you won't be able to transfer the music to your favorite MP3 player or other device.

As you may know if you have been following the blog, Nokia's new music service it due to be launched in the middle of this year. It was previously reported that there would be the offer of unlimited downloads, but now there are mumblings that it will be a reasonably high limit. Nokia at present haven’t released any details to quantify the vague term ‘reasonably high limit’.

Has Nokia's business model missed the boat considering the trend in the music industry has for some time been shifting away from DRM based services?