Music Ally

Live from London, we’re liveblogging our own Mobile Music In The Dock event, for which we’ve gathered expert witnesses, canny prosecution and defence teams, and a raucous (we hope) jury to decide whether mobile music is living up to the industry’s expectations. Read on, and refresh for the latest entries…

18.35: We’re about to get underway, but here’s a rundown of who’s who tonight. The prosecutor is Jeremy Silver QC from Sibelius Software, while the defence counsel is Ralph Simon QC from the Mobile Entertainment Forum.

Expert witnesses include Paul Kenny (Global Head of Music, Vodafone), Tim Grimsditch (Global Product Marketing, Nokia Music), Mark Mulligan (Senior Analyst, Jupiter Research), Scott Cohen (Founder, The Orchard), Paul Lee (Deloitte) and Gary McClarnan (Sparklestreet).

The judge? Our own Paul Brindley. No, he’s not wearing a dusty wig. We did try to persuade him. Read on for the report of what happens, as it happens.

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The reactions are coming in from yesterday’s announcement by Nokia of more Comes With Music details. Jupiter Research analyst Mark Mulligan has chipped in with his views, which are largely positive – calling it “a great, innovative and exciting development, probably the single most important thing to happen to the music industry for some time, in concept at least.”

But… Actually, there’s two buts. Mulligan expresses shock that Nokia only announced plans for 12 and 18-month contracts for Comes With Music, but no 24-month subscriptions (the length of some mobile contracts nowadays).

“There is no current provision to provide consumers the ability to pay for continuation of the service,” he says. “This is a shock and a big missed opportunity if it doesn’t transpire. All I can assume is that they haven’t yet agreed on terms with the labels and that they want to assess year 1 adoption and usage to give them extra leverage in licensing discussions.”

He also expresses concern that Comes With Music might teach younger consumers that music should be free even from legitimate sources, even if Nokia labours the point that it’s not ‘free’. “Nokia and the broader industry will need to develop some sophisticated consumer life cycle management over the coming years,” says Mulligan. “It’s crucial that those consumers who are strong premium prospects are identified early and streamed away from the freeloaders who may never pay.”