Nokia's all you can download Comes with Music service is finally DRM free... in China (updated)
By Thomas Ricker 
posted April 8th 2010 2:00AM
posted April 8th 2010 2:00AM
At launch, Chinese consumers will have a choice of eight (ok, seven really) CWM handsets (X6 32GB and X6 16GB, 5230, 5330, 5800w, 6700s, E52 and E72i) with prices starting at a local equivalent of €140 (the CWM service fee is baked in to the cost, mind you) excluding taxes and subsidies. Suspiciously, Nokia's not making the usual boast about the millions of tracks available in the CWM catalog. It is, however, reassuringly supported by all the Big 4 music labels in addition to some Chinese indies, as you'd expect. Sorry, no word on when they'll strip the DRM from its European CWM stores and we're still not clear when CWM will finally see a US launch. Hopefully soon as a service like this could go over very, very well Stateside -- a market that Nokia is desperate to crack. Get on to the other side of the break for the full press release.
Update: We met with Jyrki Rosenberg, Director of Music at Nokia, who shed a bit more light on the offering. Unfortunately, while DRM-free music aligns with Nokia's global vision, he had nothing to announce for the US or Europe today. And as you might expect, the onus to go DRM-free in China was in part driven by rampant, local piracy concerns -- recovery of any revenue was better than nothing at all in the eyes of the Big Four. Jyrki also told us that Chinese CWM subscriptions will be 1 year in length but the terms of renewal are still being hammered out. We also know that the music catalog numbers in the "hundreds of thousands" at launch (comparable to competing services in the region, according to Jyrki) and is growing every day. Privacy advocates will be happy to hear that the 256kbps MP3 files are "clean" -- in other words, no user data is embedded in the files unlike the practices of Apple and Walmart, among others.
UNLIMITED MUSIC DOWNLOAD SERVICE REDEFINES CHINA'S MOBILE DIGITAL MUSIC LANDSCAPE
NOKIA'S GLOBAL MOBILE MUSIC LEADERSHIP UNDERLINED WITH LAUNCH OF DRM-FREE COMES WITH MUSIC SERVICE FOR MILLIONS OF CONSUMERS IN CHINA
Beijing, China & Espoo, Finland, April 8, 2010: Nokia today further increases its global footprint in the mobile music space with the launch of its ground breaking service, 'Comes With Music', in China. This announcement sees China's number one mobile brand drive further innovation in the music space by introducing the first device and PC-based free, legal, DRM-free music download service in the world's biggest mobile market.
The launch of Nokia's unlimited music download offering in China adds further momentum to Nokia's leadership in the world's highest growth markets including Brazil, Russia and Indonesia. The forthcoming launch of the service in India will add significant scale and differentiation in another critical market.
In a local partnership with Huadong Feitian, the China launch further showcases Nokia's expertise in delivering music services, tailored to local consumer needs. The service delivers a rich catalogue of local artists, unique features developed for the Chinese market, and a seamless, high quality music download experience.
Comes With Music will be available to consumers across China via a broad range of devices and through an extensive nationwide retail network. At launch, consumers can get unlimited music downloads with the purchase of any one of eight devices, to include the Nokia X6 32GB and Nokia X6 16GB, Nokia 5230, Nokia 5330, Nokia 5800w, Nokia 6700s, Nokia E52 and Nokia E72i. Entry level prices will start from EUR 140, excluding local taxes and subsidies.
"This launch delivers a truly mass market music offering from China's most loved mobile brand. Our broad range of Comes With Music enabled devices and the high quality, DRM-free catalogue form the perfect legal download recipe for the world's biggest market for mobile phones," says Liz Schimel, Global Head of Music, Nokia. "Globally, we have expanded the reach of our music service to 30 markets in just 18 months. We are excited to see consumers building collections of the music they love through our service, and we are firmly on the path to delivering legal digital music to all parts of the world. It's fantastic to have so many local and global labels partner with us to deliver this service in China. The industry came together to support us in innovating the mobile music business model in this unique market."
The service will include catalogues from the major global labels Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, EMI Music, and a host of local independent labels, including Huayi Brothers Media Group and Taihe Rye.
"China is a massive opportunity and a challenging market to address. Nokia is the undisputed dominant mobile player within China – there is no better partner with whom to develop the market in new, imaginative ways and make the most of its potential," says Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, Universal Music Group International.
"We are delighted to be expanding our partnership with Nokia to bring Comes With Music to the Chinese market," says Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business, U.S. Sales and Corporate Strategy, Sony Music Entertainment. "We think there is great potential to convert China's massive audience of music fans into consumers of legitimate digital music with compelling services that are easy-to-use and broadly available across a wide array of mobile devices."
Song Ke, CEO, Taihe Rye, says; "We are very excited by the opportunity to have our music catalogue not only available in China, but to the rest of the world. Lovers of Chinese music can now download content from Comes With Music, broadening the market for our artists globally."
"Establishing legitimate online music services in emerging markets is imperative for the music industry's ongoing effort to remake itself," says Mike McGuire, Research Vice President, Media IAS Team, Gartner. "By getting the Comes with Music service up and running in China, and with India coming on shortly, Nokia is taking important steps in continuing to expand its Comes With Music ecosystem. It's also playing an important role in developing compelling alternatives for both artists and labels, and consumers."
NOKIA'S GLOBAL MOBILE MUSIC LEADERSHIP UNDERLINED WITH LAUNCH OF DRM-FREE COMES WITH MUSIC SERVICE FOR MILLIONS OF CONSUMERS IN CHINA
Beijing, China & Espoo, Finland, April 8, 2010: Nokia today further increases its global footprint in the mobile music space with the launch of its ground breaking service, 'Comes With Music', in China. This announcement sees China's number one mobile brand drive further innovation in the music space by introducing the first device and PC-based free, legal, DRM-free music download service in the world's biggest mobile market.
The launch of Nokia's unlimited music download offering in China adds further momentum to Nokia's leadership in the world's highest growth markets including Brazil, Russia and Indonesia. The forthcoming launch of the service in India will add significant scale and differentiation in another critical market.
In a local partnership with Huadong Feitian, the China launch further showcases Nokia's expertise in delivering music services, tailored to local consumer needs. The service delivers a rich catalogue of local artists, unique features developed for the Chinese market, and a seamless, high quality music download experience.
Comes With Music will be available to consumers across China via a broad range of devices and through an extensive nationwide retail network. At launch, consumers can get unlimited music downloads with the purchase of any one of eight devices, to include the Nokia X6 32GB and Nokia X6 16GB, Nokia 5230, Nokia 5330, Nokia 5800w, Nokia 6700s, Nokia E52 and Nokia E72i. Entry level prices will start from EUR 140, excluding local taxes and subsidies.
"This launch delivers a truly mass market music offering from China's most loved mobile brand. Our broad range of Comes With Music enabled devices and the high quality, DRM-free catalogue form the perfect legal download recipe for the world's biggest market for mobile phones," says Liz Schimel, Global Head of Music, Nokia. "Globally, we have expanded the reach of our music service to 30 markets in just 18 months. We are excited to see consumers building collections of the music they love through our service, and we are firmly on the path to delivering legal digital music to all parts of the world. It's fantastic to have so many local and global labels partner with us to deliver this service in China. The industry came together to support us in innovating the mobile music business model in this unique market."
The service will include catalogues from the major global labels Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, EMI Music, and a host of local independent labels, including Huayi Brothers Media Group and Taihe Rye.
"China is a massive opportunity and a challenging market to address. Nokia is the undisputed dominant mobile player within China – there is no better partner with whom to develop the market in new, imaginative ways and make the most of its potential," says Rob Wells, Senior Vice President, Digital, Universal Music Group International.
"We are delighted to be expanding our partnership with Nokia to bring Comes With Music to the Chinese market," says Thomas Hesse, President, Global Digital Business, U.S. Sales and Corporate Strategy, Sony Music Entertainment. "We think there is great potential to convert China's massive audience of music fans into consumers of legitimate digital music with compelling services that are easy-to-use and broadly available across a wide array of mobile devices."
Song Ke, CEO, Taihe Rye, says; "We are very excited by the opportunity to have our music catalogue not only available in China, but to the rest of the world. Lovers of Chinese music can now download content from Comes With Music, broadening the market for our artists globally."
"Establishing legitimate online music services in emerging markets is imperative for the music industry's ongoing effort to remake itself," says Mike McGuire, Research Vice President, Media IAS Team, Gartner. "By getting the Comes with Music service up and running in China, and with India coming on shortly, Nokia is taking important steps in continuing to expand its Comes With Music ecosystem. It's also playing an important role in developing compelling alternatives for both artists and labels, and consumers."
This almost seems like too great of a deal.
@Sourside
140, for a decent handset and unlimited music? If this also includes Ovi Maps then its unbeatable!
Or people in China can just use Google Music to download music for free...
@shadowskyx
A: Google Music currently only available in the U.S.
B: DRM'less CWM is a good idea and will benefit the artists.
@JFH DRM free music from Google China has been available for a while now. It's a great service I use it all the time.
@mukatuna
Thats interesting, since I just talked to some guys in Shanghai that didnt know it even existed. It's still available, even though Google is "out" of China?
@JFH Yeh Google China music still works just fine here in Hangzhou, Free downloads, DRM free, most major artists, completely legal.
@JFH Google Music with free download is only available in China, there is no "Google Music" in the US, only the Discover Music service. It's pretty interesting that the service was not interrupted by Google's exit at all.
@hmmwv
Thanks for clarifying
LOL, China? How many people in China would care about this in the first place, where the other alternative is free.
@pika2000
A tiny 1% of population in china will give you 13 million people man. I bet there will be enough people who care
@pika2000
Probably the ones who buy Nokia smartphones. Since that's about 40% of a market of millions, yeah it's a pretty big deal.
@MarkAnderson Actually I believe the number is closer to 35%, but anyone who's speculating on Nokia loosing ground should forget it. They maintained same penetration rate WW in 2009 as in 2008.
@MarkAnderson Out of those people that bought Nokia smartphones, how many do you think willing to pay for music, in China? Probably close to nil. Remember, the alternative is free, or gigabytes of MP3 in a DVD sold for pennies.
@pika2000
They are not "paying" for the music, it is factored into the price of the handset. Seems like one of the few ways to actually get revenue out of music in China, and seems like a smart move.
@pika2000 FYI the percentage of the population here in China who actually own PCs is quite small, most use internet cafes for 'net access. However Nokia mobile phones are extremely popular.
@pika2000 There's still a cost to free:
You've got to actually go and source the music for starts (Ignoring the horror that is bit torrent, with its unreliable connections and even less reliable data which is often either loaded with malware or tampered with to make the process annoying).
So lets assume you've got probably the best form of transfer like usenet (which is subject to the same file tampering and virus infection).
Transfer speeds, not a problem, but you've about 5 different means of compression / splitting to deal with (part's, then the files could be yEnc'd too etc..)
Or.. you can at will, download pure MP3's for free..
You're buying a new handset anyway, you don't need a smartphone and a Nokia dumphone's as good as that little Sony Ericsson you're looking at.
Which would you choose?
I personally can't stand Nokia's and I speak the above from experience of using these transfer methods, and even on a mac (which partially circumvents the malware problem, since most of that is targeted at windows) its still a massive pain in the ass getting content through it.
I'd happily pay for an all-you-can eat DRM free music service any day.
@pika2000
I bet it's much more convenient than the "other alternative".
CWM like offerings are the one thing were i could accept DRM. But hey, without it its even cooler.
Dont think it come so soon to Europe, maybe they started in China because there is nobody to sue them...
it's DRM free in china cause it's in the only place that its useless
there are no rights in kirf city
@Atlantian DRM is useless everywhere.
@pika2000 true
so this is like if Zune Pass let you keep your music when you stop paying for it? and its all legal beagle? is this the best thing ever or am i drunker than i thought i was?
@kojo87 Yes. Only difference is that you can keep the music.
A good idea and a test bed for the rest of the world. I'm sure CWN will become DRM free in the coming months although Nokia will no doubt concentrate on territories where they dominate - Asia and Europe - before considering the minor US market.
It's call "revenue recovery" when you can download MP3 via google for free legally and Baidu (illegal)
What the record company should hope is that people get used to download from the legal side and then start slowly recover the lost revenue as people are used to download from legal service, while slowly kill the illegal grounds
Agree with @MarkAnderson on this. Unfortunately manufacturers tend to focus on markets where they can most easily gain the most traction or that they're the most familiar with.
US software makers make apps LAST for Nokia and Nokia sets out new services and firmware updates to US-based Nokia users LAST.
@gubbe
True, Even though I also just read that digital chocolate from california had over 4 million downloads through the Ovi store. Thats pretty good.
or maybe NOKIA could get a NEW mobile phone out
what are they doing?!?!????
@liquidmonkey Nokia is actually bringing out new phones all the time...
@gubbe
i mean more high end devices like something along the lines of an EVO or DESIRE.
in that department, nokia is falling behind it seems.
@liquidmonkey
I think the N900 is on that level, and the N8 will certainly be. Funny thing how the EVO thing is such a big thing. Good specs for sure, but that 4G thing that has everyone in a tizzy really doesnt say anything.
@JFH
your right, the N8 looks like its gonna kick some butt, BUT that won't b for a while yet :(
the EVO is awesome although i could care less about the 4G. i just want it to come to europe :) and of course, get really good reviews. granted that its not for everyone, a lot of people on engadget jizzed in their pants when it was announced.
i hope nokia can match HTC in 2010!
@liquidmonkey
That actually says a lot about the people on Engadget. For being such aficionados to roam these parts of the internets, buzzwords get them going quickly. And yes, would like to see the Evo over here in Europe as well. Heck, its even virtually impossible for me to find the N900 here in stores!
This is ironic on so many levels.
I really hope rest of the world would get something similar too. I don't usually spend much on music, but I would definitely buy a DRM free CWM as a secondary phone.
Or... Nokia could just create a good MeeGo phone with DRM free CWM. It would fit the concept perfectly.
Honestly this service is such a killer.
I don't have need for it as i already go big music library, but for somebody who is building one, this is such a great service.... after the DRM gets out her in Europe.
Yeah! Free unlimited music in your while you navigate you ways round the world.
Thank for breaking the news... in China.
In other words, Americans don't pirate enough music for DRM to be pointless. Start downloading more, people!
Well this is cool, but I gotta be honest, when it comes to subscription based services like Ovi Music and the Zune Pass, I'm okay with DRM. For single and album downloads I want a pure, might-as-well-be-ripped-from-the-CD file, but not so much with this stuff. I guess I'm in the minority, but that's just how I feel about it. They're two different forms of getting music, one shouldn't ever, under any circumstances have DRM, and the other is alright with me if it is there.