Comes With Music goes live in China… DRM-free
Tweet
Nokia is launching Comes With Music in China today, and it’s the first market to get a DRM-free version of the all-you-can-eat music service. It’s also the first time people will be able to sign up to the service without buying a brand new handset.
Nokia has partnered with Chinese firm Huadong Feitian to launch the service there, and eight handsets will be supported from day one: the Nokia X6 32GB and Nokia X6 16GB, Nokia 5230, Nokia 5330, Nokia 5800w, Nokia 6700s, Nokia E52 and Nokia E72i. They’ll be sold with CWM bundled into their price through a network of 80,000 retailers, rather than via operator deals.
“It’s not an operator-based offering, it’s a retail-based offering,” Nokia’s director of global music Adam Mirabella tells Music Ally. “Consumers can walk into those 80,000 stores, buy the Nokia handset and activate Comes With Music.”
People who already own any of those eight phones will be able to sign up for Comes With Music today too, in a departure from Nokia’s strategy in other countries. All four majors are on board for the Chinese launch, as well as more than 70 local independents including Huayi Brothers Media Group and Taihe Rye. “50% of the catalogue will be local repertoire,” says Mirabella.
They’ll be hoping Nokia can crack the challenge of promoting legal music in China, where piracy remains strong. “China is a massive opportunity and a challenging market to address,” says UMG’s Rob Wells in a statement, while Sony Music’s Thomas Hesse says that the service offers “great potential to convert China’s massive audience of music fans into consumers of legitimate digital music”.
It’s the DRM-free aspect that’s the biggest surprise, though. “We looked at this marketplace with our label and publishing partners, and everybody agreed that the only way to captivate customers there is to offer something that is DRM-free,” says Mirabella. “We felt if we go anywhere else but DRM-free, the service isn’t going to get the traction it needs to.”
The obvious question is whether this makes it more likely that Nokia will switch Comes With Music to a DRM-free model in other countries around the world. Mirabella remains tight-lipped on those prospects, repeating earlier comments from Nokia executives that the company is “continually looking to refine our offerings around the world, in partnership with the labels and publishers”.
Given the widespread music piracy in China, will people really flock to Comes With Music as an alternative? Going DRM-free is an advantage, of course, but Mirabella cites other reasons. “People will be getting all the metadata and album art, good clean files authorised by the music companies, the highest quality files and something that’s virus-free,” he says.
“This marketplace is begging for a legal opportunity. The music companies, publishing companies and artists have not really been able to generate any revenue in this marketplace. They’re all looking for somebody with a strong footprint and presence, to see if there’s something they can do to build the business back.”
Tags: Comes With Music, nokia
April 8th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Adam Mirabella and his team should be congratulated on this licensing milestone.
Not only with even limited traction, will the number of legal downloads dwarf the biggest digital store to date, in a relatively short time.
But the ramifications, dependent on consumer behaviour, will have a significant impact on the global music industry for years to come.
I am sure that there are statistical analysts at the major labels and publishers salivating, with their spread sheets at the ready, awaiting the first tranche of reporting from Nokia.