Labels Agree On Free Music Downloads To Cell Phones

An anonymous reader writes "CNet's Crave reports on a potentially revolutionary digital music service set to launch worldwide later this year. It's offering free, unlimited over-the-air downloads to cell phones, with music from all four major record labels, with no subscription. And the selections that users download get automatically downloaded to their PC or Mac. Rather obviously, the tracks are DRMed, but unlike the similar Nokia service unveiled last year to much disappointment, this MusicStation Max service will have exclusive handsets from LG and no additional fees to customers. This is a little similar to an idea talked about last year, but with all four majors on-board it seems to have greater potential."

They still don't get it!

"...Rather obviously, the tracks are DRMed..."

They still don't get it! Do I say more?

Not Free

It's not free. It's built into the price of the handset/subscription.

Re:They still don't get it!

"a method to apply cheaper and wider access to music, albeit with restrictions."

In a free market competition drives cheaper prices. Intellectual monopoly products have no competition apart from the yarrr mateys. Prevent copying (or any form of competition) and you get more expensive, not cheaper, music.

So, no, DRM is never beneficial.

Re:

You may have a point, there. DRM on expensive items doesn't work, when the alternative is a free unauthorized download. However, if legal downloads become dirt-cheap, but locked to a device with DRM, the situation might change. DRM will always be crackable

They still be full of DRM

Apparently nobody with power has been listening at the **AA, not even a little bit. I couldn't even work up a yawn for this new service, never mind enough excitement to contemplate what missing features will be on the phone and what 'extra' goodies will be there to track my every move or some attempt at that.

ooops, there, I yawned.

Did I hear someone just call them fucking idiots?

Well

All 4 major labels are involved, why didn't they include the part about getting sued?

Re:Well

All 4 major labels are involved, why didn't they include the part about getting sued?

The announcement if by the lables, not the RIAA. In other news, The RIAA to sue all four lables for making avaliable songs.

Why buy music now?

This doesn't add up to me. Free downloads, no subscription fees, transferable to your home computer - so why will I need to buy any music ever again?

What's the business model for the record labels?

Re:Why buy music now?

If you read the article, it does say that you'll need a special contract and a special phone. And in addition to that contract, I believe you'll need to buy an unlimited data plan as well. Woo.

And it's not like you can put them on your iPod. If you want to use them on the computer, you'll need to use an approved player. Which I'm sure will be *fantastic*, the best *ever*!

Re:

But it's free! Sure it costs you $$$$ but it's FREE. Free I tell ya! Free! It just costs ya $$$$$$$$ but it's free!

It's funny but that's not what I call free. What's wrong with people? How can you even consider this free? It's a service.

I was excited...

And then I saw that it had DRM. And was limited to certain LG phones. Wow. Underwhelming, sad to say. Not that it'll appear down here, like, ever. Moving on.

And hell, it's *NOT REALLY FREE*. You need a special contract. Oh yeah. Sure, each track is free, but you're still paying a premium for it. I don't mind that, but it's a bit misleading. Not that I'm surprised.

They haven't even said which player will be able to play the files. It looks like Windows Media Player is a contender.

All-in-all, not impressed.

Won't download for free

I'm not willing to download 98% of the music they produce these days, for free via P2P. However, I'm at the point in my life where I could maybe afford an album per month... sucks for them I guess.

Nothing Free here, move along please...

It's DRMed service which you will pay for. Nothing FREE in any sense of the word.

Limited songs on limited phones with limited transfer on limited equipment....

Have it right now MP3, BitTorrent, Piratebay and my WiFi enabled smartphone...

This just in!

Music companies just found another tech company to take a bajillion dollars to promise them that sweet, sweet DRM.

How many times does that make now? I can think of no better evidence that cocaine makes you dumb.

It's not a bad model ...BUT

Bundling some sort of a music fee into digital items is not a bad business model. The record companies get their piece of the pie, consumers can get a set of appliances where they can have their music.

This actually isn't that different from the software model, pre-Microsoft. Software was ultimately bundled in with the hardware and service contract costs and so everyone could just sorta of copy software all over the place. Heck, Microsoft owes a lot of its success to this sort of model for Windows largely due to its lack of DRM. If Microsoft required the sort of authentication with DOS and Windows 3.1 that it requires for Vista, it is very doubtful they would be in the dominant position they are in today. DOS used to be $10!!!

Of course, this bundling sucks for Linux and completely free software, but one could envision a distro actually having a service plan with it for DRM content. If you throw in a few extra bucks, the content plan could actually be used to help fund further Linux development. Thus, tacking a few bucks onto teeny boppers wanting to get the latest Hannah Montana on a Linux box could actually be used to help pay for things like additional FireFox, Open Office and other Linux core applications development.

The one thing that really hurts the credibility of the music industry, aside from the obvious and vile thuggishness with which RIAA presses its claims, is that, the artist's share of the proceeds is rather small. In the CD / Vinyl days, a large cut for the industry was reasonable because of all the people that the business needed to pay to make physical copies. Now, with electronic distribution, there's really no moral reason why the artist can't get a larger piece of the pie. But as we have seen with the writer's strike, it seems that the content industry isn't really interested in promoting, well, the truly gifted people that make content, but rather, exploiting them, and that completely undermines any legitimate claim onto the advantages of copyright. The recording industry isn't really an enabler of artists, as much as it is more like the Islamic caliphs of old sitting on overland trade routes, exploiting them until the Europeans figured out how to sail around them and avoid the ridiculous surcharges.

To have an efficient capitalistic economy, you want to reward investment in people that actually add value, and record companies don't. So, having a more consumer friendly business model won't fix the problem. Record companies have to actually pay the artists a real percentage of the music sales. IF shareware distributors can thrive taking 10-15% of a sale, leaving artists with the lion's share, then so can record companies. The situation is different with movies, which are much more collaborative and capital intensive thing, but, even there, there's no reason that the principals of a movie can't get a bigger piece of the pie.

Not just DRM, but rootkit as well

I started reading the original article, and stopped at this line:

"Every time you download a song to your phone, the same song is downloaded to your computer for playback through your PC speakers."

Just how the heck do they know when my PC is on, much less download songs to it? I don't want them downloading songs onto my PC without my knowledge. This service seems insidious. So you're saying every time I want to download a song, your proprietary player needs to be on a computer that's on and hooked up to the internet? Gee, there's no potential for abuse there.

What if someone sends me a rogue music file? If the same file is downloaded to my computer, isn't that going to mess up my machine? Virus writers are going to have a field day with this. Shame on Omniphone for promoting this garbage, and what is LG thinking, buying into this deal?

This will not replace p2p. It will barely make a dent. How can you justify charging for premium unlimited data when the same thing can be done with any smart phone on a wifi network for free? Really, these companies need to go back to their boardrooms and either disband or think of a better business model.

I'm not worried about the DRM. Whatever DRM these files come with will be broken the day that the first music file is downloaded from this service. I just don't understand why they even bother, anymore.

Can't teach a dinosaur new tricks, I suppose.

DRM Sorrows

So suppose this is a hit. Everyone gets this phone and this music service. At that point, what point at all will DRM serve, since User A thru User Z can all get the same free music?

While the obvious answer is "None!", somehow I still suspect that DRM would remain, and User B copying a file from User A, instead of downloading it for free from the overloaded servers would still be inviting an RIAA lawsuit!

Re:Call me a dinosaur...

Quick, get off his lawn before he eats us! Run!!!!

Re:Call me a dinosaur...

Exactly! It still boggles my mind that computers do anything other than do math! Whats all this graphics and gaming crap they put on computers these days- just grab a pen and paper or go outside! *humph* "applications" on a computer... what a waste.

Re:Call me a dinosaur...

Tsk. Tsk. You and your fancy "number storing" telephone.

Because it's not a telephone.

The majority of people want to have four digital devices with them at all times: a phone, a PDA, a camera, and a music player. They also do not want to carry separate devices to do these things. So, they get bundled. A cell phone is a PDA/C, a personal digital assistant/communicator. The PDA/C allows the user to organize contact information, schedules, etc. The audio capabilities keeps the user entertained while travelling. The video capabilities allows the user to capture spontaneous moments, or take video notes (pictures of signs, etc). Oh, and it also allows the user to communicate. That means sending text, pictures, and of course, two way audio. Cell phones are starting to have internet browsers on them. In the future, look for them to have docking stations with full sized keyboards and monitors, as the cell phone and the notebook merge.

Re:

So, they get bundled. A cell phone is a PDA/C, a personal digital assistant/communicator.

Heck, I'd love one of those things. But it seems, every time I've gotten excited and tried them, it's turned out that I could have drawn pictures better than the ones

Re:

"Yes it means I have to carry a shoulder bag around with me everywhere"

Technology has turned you female.

Only instead of lipstick, tampons, tissues and chocolate, it's shiny devices, protective cases, game cartridges, memory cards... Have fun with that.

Musi

Re:

I think you're being deliberately obtuse.

First, phones have those features because the vast majority of people find them desirable. Not everyone wants them, of course, but way more than half. Each different phone has a full set of engineering, manufact

Re:

You make good points, but I'll also disagree with you on one area. Having a camera can be a detriment, because there are work environments where one is allowed to have a cell phone, but not one with a camera. Thus the phone with a camera gets left in a loc