SMSTextNews Looks at Nokia's Music Store

[Ewan]

Ben Smith at SMSTextNews continues his long-term look at the Ovi components, and now turns his attention to the Nokia Music Store. His overall grade of a ‘C-‘ reflects his view that the service is “good enough as a default” but wonders what positive impact the ‘Comes with Music’ package will have in the future.

Read on in the full article.

[krisse]

The Register derides practically everything, especially if it has the word "Nokia" in it somewhere. I don't remember anything they've reported related to Nokia that hasn't been an attack of some kind. Even when Nokia reported sales and profits up in every department, El Reg's spin was that most of the sales were of cheaper models so it somehow destroyed the idea of Nokia smartphones being a success (completely ignoring the smartphone sales and profits going up too, and the fact that smartphone prices are tumbling to normal phone levels).

Getting back on topic, what I can't understand is how Nokia Music Store is at all compatible with Comes With Music: one sells tracks the old-fashioned way, the other is all-you-can-eat.

Surely everyone will just go down the all-you-can-eat path, especially if we can keep the CWM tracks forever?

[Rafe]

I suspect CWM will essentially give you everything in the store for free for 1 year from purchase. However some people will keep a phone beyond a year and will therefore have to start paying. In other words CWM will get people into the store and then get them using it afterwards to buy more music... or people will get a new phone or pay for a new CWM subscription (Nokia are looking into this).. I imagine any of those would keep Nokia happy.

Also only select phones are going to CWM.

[krisse]

I suspect CWM will essentially give you everything in the store for free for 1 year from purchase.

At the original CWM announcement OPK said that people could keep everything they download from CWM forever, at least on that phone.

However, does that mean the entire store, or does CWM just apply to a selection of tracks?

Interestingly, you can already listen to the entire store's tracks for 10 euros a month, providing you only do it on your PC. If that could be extended to cover phones too (perhaps at a higher monthly rate?), that could be an alternative to CWM.

or people will get a new phone or pay for a new CWM subscription

Of course, and that's probably what I'd do if the price was right, but that would still potentially leave the old-fashioned store looking a bit redundant, at least for people with CWM phones.

As you say though, most people won't have CWM phones so there will still be a need for some other means of getting tracks.

[Rafe]

Just to clarify - yes you do keep the music, but after 1 year if you want any new music you would have to buy it. That's what I see the store being used for.

Even for CWM downloading via a store makes sense, you just aren;t paying at the point of sale.

I would hope they'll have a version of the music store for cwm users that cuts down clicks for download.

I also imagine that some music (from Indie lables) will not be covered by CWM and will therefore still need to purchased traditionally.

[rcadden]

Rafe's understanding is how the CWM has been explained to me 2x by Nokia reps. Your CWM handset will, once registered to your account, convert all the 'prices' in the music store to free. They'll stay that way for a year, after which they'll convert to the going market rate ($.99/track or whatever it is then). Tracks that you download with CWM have the same DRM as regularly purchased tracks.