Nokia's free music service

First Nokia gives away free worldwide maps on Series 60 and Windows Mobile phones with their Smart2Go service.

Now they are planning to shake the music and mobile industry by giving away free music. Nokia's "Comes with Music" is indeed an interesting approach and even for a guy like me who is sceptical of online music stores (physical copy rules!) gives this the thumbs up. Basically any Nokia phone that is bundled with a "Comes with Music" service will come with a one year subscription to download music. Unlike (the new) Napster To Go or Zune Pass, once the annual subscription is up you get to keep the music. Which is bloody fucking fantastic.

Obviously there will be some catches. None are confirmed yet, but my guess is the music will DRM'ed and only transferable to other Nokia music phones. Now I personally hate DRM but since the music is practically being given away for free I guess it would be wrong to knock it off. From a consumer's point of view I find nothing wrong with this service and it does make iSheeps rebuying music they own (they exists) from online music services like Itunes look rather foolish. If this is a success it will just kill Apple's business model.

All the more reason that this service should succeed.