Music label EMI has expressed some interest in being the second major label to sign on with Nokia’s “Comes With Music” digital music subscription service. This is a positive move forward and helps to legitimize what basically amounts to an $80 premium per device in exchange for one year of unlimited music downloads.
The deal’s not all Chapstick and back rubs, though, as the files are DRM’d and Nokia hasn’t announced whether it’ll pass the $80 cost on to consumers or if they’ll eat the cost themselves or try to get wireless carriers to foot some of the bill.
Apple’s reportedly eyeing the same unlimited music idea as Nokia except it’s only offered to pay a $20 premium per device, citing that the average iPod owner only purchases $20 worth of music from iTunes. I’ve got news for Apple; if everything in iTunes was free, I’d be getting a lot more of my content from there — much, much, much more than $20-worth. If Apple can get the labels to agree to $20, fine by me. Better, actually, because I’d gladly pony up $20 every year for unlimited downloads from iTunes. I’d be a much harder sell on the $80 thing from Nokia, though.
Nokia’s “Comes With Music” now comes with EMI [Ars Technica]