Sep 24 2008
Sony-Ericsson, Nokia unveil unlimited music services
DAS BUNKER, British Phonographic Industry, Wednesday (NNGadget) — Sony-Ericsson has announced PlayNow Plus, a new plan for unlimited “DRM-free” music downloads on phones.
“Pay, er, PlayNow Plus is completely unlimited, covers all major labels, no DRM, get all you want any time you like,” said spokesdrone Mobile Salestwat. “This is the biggest deal in mobile music ever! Of course, it’ll only play on your phone, for the duration of the contract, all songs then disappearing. Well, just a little DRM. Honest.”
Nokia was quick to strike back. “Our Comes With Music plan is a simple, compelling user experience with first class music-enabled devices, and really doesn’t have any DRM at all, unlike those rapacious Sony bastards,” said spokesdrone Mobile Salestwat. “We pay you to take the songs! And you keep all of them! Forever! Until the end of the contract. And you can play them on your phone and your computer! Through the Nokia software. So only a wafer-thin piece of DRM. Hardly any.”
“Our plan is so much better,” said Sony. “Songs from our service randomly come up to you offering you CASH CASH CASH, a lovely fruit basket, a backrub and a blowjob. The rootkit our software installs on your computer, which crashes it once an hour and records everything you do for our marketing department and sends a gigabyte a day of Nigerian spam, is for your comfort and convenience. And absolutely no DRM. We prefer the term digital consumer enhancement.”
“Your plan’s mother was a pigdog!” said Nokia. “Have you ever tried using an Ericsson phone? Worst. Interface. Ever. Our plan beams the entire catalogues of all six, er, five, I mean four major labels, plus the complete works of the remaining Hollywood studios, directly into your brain’s pleasure centre! And also gives you huge and spectacular breasts! Or penis! Or both! And your little dog too! It does burn out chunks of your cerebral cortex when your contract ends, for the protection of the artists and the continued development of musical culture. So you might want to be sure you’re on time with your upgrade. But it’s not DRM. As such.”
Both services offer approximately five million songs, though 98% of downloads to date have been of the track “Bloody Irritating Piece Of Synthetic R&B” by MC Sewermouth, purchased on stolen phones and played at top volume by those teenagers in the back seat of the bus.
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Mobile phones should really not be able to reproduce music without headphones. It’s almost as annoying as the B.O. from the guy next to you in the bus/tram.
At least Apple doesn’t sell BO on iFumes.
Nice Article. I like your style. Seriously though, it is going to take ages before the music industry relents and lets music go totally DRM free. No phone manufacturer or network operator would like to go the route of Napster. I think before the music industry changes, we will have a new financial system in place :). But, I think both Nokia’s and SE’s efforts along with Amazon’s efforts for the G1 are in right direction. I don’t think Apple is going to change until the music industry changes.
@dvdand - someone must be making a fortune convincing record company execs that people will buy what the execs think they should buy, not what they actually want to buy. In a world where everyone can hear all the music ever made without paying for it, and anyone buying your recording is doing so because they want to give you money. They still think it’s the ’90s.
(more rants at http://rocknerd.co.uk - me? embittered record collector and ex-music journalist?)
For all your ranting you dont provide an answer to one simple question - how does the artist make money without DRM? Without DRM you end up with services like allofmp3 which made the music available but didnt pay one cent to the artists. You are just another populist bandwagoner who spouts off without understanding the business realities of the situation. You’re are a goose….
@Merchy - your overwhelming sense of entitlement fails to include mention of what your customers want - they despise the stuff. With DRM you end up with those services too - allofmp3 are notorious for re-encoding and never mind the quality. You’re not competing with legal services, you’re competing with free - the fact that the general public refuse to see non-profit copying as immoral. The amazing thing about iTunes is that anyone spends money on it at all (and well done to Apple), and the DRM still pisses people off.
And what makes you think the artists would get paid anyway?
emusic and bleep are two websites that come to mind where artists make money and consumers don’t have to suffer DRM
@Simonf - I’m an enthusiastic and happy customer of eMusic - they’re fantastic for record nerds after obscurities. No-one gets paid very much at about 20p per song, but then again 20p per song way beats 0p per song.