Music Ally

Last Comes With Music post of the day, we promise. Having liveblogged yesterday’s Remix event and tracked some of the online reaction, we’ve come up with our list of ten questions and/or challenges for Nokia around its unlimited music service.

Don’t get us wrong, Comes With Music is an innovative and brave attempt to find a workable new business model for music. We’re not being overly negative, or writing it off. But there are some key questions that remain on how the service will actually work.

1. What’s the story with the operators? It’s clear that no actual deals with operators for CWM have been signed, yet Nokia said yesterday its decision to add an 18-month CWM option was at the behest of operators. Was that not enough to persuade any to sign on the dotted line? And will the lack of operator partners prevent Nokia from going full steam ahead on over-the-air track downloads?

2. What happens at the end of 18 months? Nokia has stressed that users can keep all the music they’ve downloaded at the end of their CWM music contract – a big plus point. But how can a consumer maintain access to the service if they don’t buy a new handset at that point? This is still shrouded in secrecy.

3. What happens with one household, two people, two phones, but one PC? The idea of couples rushing out to buy matching 5310s might sound ridiculous, but nitty-gritty details like how Nokia’s ‘one phone and one PC’ authorisation scheme adapts to two CWM users on the same PC will be pored over at launch.

4. What does ‘unlimited’ really mean? Nokia says users can download as many tracks as they want, but increasingly consumers are aware that ‘unlimited’ doesn’t always mean, well, unlimited. Look at all those broadband ISPs with fair usage policies. When CWM goes live, there is bound to be some scrutiny over whether there is an upper ceiling for particularly greedy downloaders.

5. How many more handsets will CWM support, and how soon? So far, two launch handsets have been announced for the UK – the 5310 XpressMusic, and the existing N95 8GB. Meanwhile, the 5800 ‘Tube’ phone that was also unveiled yesterday will apparently be CWM-friendly when it goes on sale in the first quarter of next year in the UK. But we’ll get a sense of how hard Nokia will be pushing CWM when the company announces other handsets.

6. What about existing N95 8GB users? People who bought this handset in the last couple of months may feel somewhat short-changed if they can’t sign up to CWM – it’s a little unclear whether only new shipments of the phone will work with it. CWM “enablers” were part of the phone’s last firmware update, so technically, it should be possible to allow existing users to sign up. Will they be allowed to though? And if they are, does it detract from the current marketing line on CWM – which is ‘buy a new device, get unlimited music’?

7. How soon will CWM roll out to other markets? The UK is the only confirmed CWM launch as things stand, and it certainly seems as if others will have to wait until next year. Nokia said yesterday that the 10 other countries where it’s launched its Nokia Music Store will be next on the list, while the US and Japan appear to be further down the road. But how fast CWM rolls out globally will be another telling sign of Nokia’s ambition and ability to scale the service.

8. How will the song sharing work? One of the most intriguing revelations yesterday was Tero Ojanpera’s claim that if two CWM users meet, they’ll be able to share tunes. ”It’s possible in the first version, so I can pass a song to you in a very nice way,” he said. This is a fascinating idea – but will it involve Zune-style song transfers, or MusicStation-style playlist sharing? This isn’t a negative question at all, but we do want to know more about how CWM’s sharing features will work.

9. Where is Warner-Chappell in the publishers list? Nokia announced deals with CELAS on behalf of EMI Music Publishing, GEMA on behalf of Sony/ATV Music Publishing, SACEM on behalf of Universal Music Publishing, and the MCPS-PRS Alliance. No Warner-Chappell though. We suspect they may be covered under the MCPS-PRS Alliance deal, but as yet, we haven’t been able to get confirmation.

10. Will there be a consensus on whether this stuff is free or not? Paul’s already commented on this over on the video post on how CWM will work. Nokia is super-keen that the word ‘free’ isn’t used in connection with its new service – the music isn’t free, it’s “included”. The prevailing wisdom is that these kinds of services risk somehow devaluing music in the eyes of consumers, yet the strongest marketing line for a CWM device would be ‘buy the phone, get free music’. Finding the balance between those two imperatives could be crucial in the growth of CWM.

8. can they get over themselves on the free thing?

Tags: Comes With Music, nokia

This entry was posted on Friday, October 3rd, 2008 at 4:52 pm and is filed under Digital Music News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.