Nokia May Drop DRM from its Music Service

Nokia has revealed it may consider following in the footsteps of Apple by removing digital right management (DRM) from the music available through its Comes with Music service.

Nokia Comes with Music -- which is currently only available on a handful of mobile phones, including Nokia's XpressMusic 5310 handset -- allows users to download as many songs as they want from the Nokia Music Store for 12 months after they have purchased a compatible Nokia handset. Nokia says that users can then keep the music after the year is up.

The Nokia Music Store features tracks from four major record labels. However, the DRM prevents the tracks from being transferred to another digital music player or from being burned to CD.

A handful of Nokia phones feature the Comes with Music service.

Adam Mirabella, director of Global Digital Music Retail at Nokia, told Channel News Asia: "We have dialogues going with all of our partners and DRM-free is also on the roadmap for the future integration of Comes With Music.

"We always knew digital was the answer, but for all this time, we've never been able to figure out a model that actually makes money, given the fact that music is so available on the net or so freely available that people were getting the music they wanted, but not actually paying for it," he added.

Apple announced at the start of the year it would be offering music tracks in its iTunes store that were DRM-free.