Nokia’s “free” Comes with Music… and DRM and hidden fees
By Thomas Ricker | December 5, 2007
Filed under: Cellphones, Portable Audio
If mama taught us one thing about free offers, it’s read the fine print. Unfortunately, it was missing from Nokia’s unusually tight-lipped “Comes with Music” announcement yesterday. Fortunately, Ars Technica unearthed the dirty details for us. Nokia’s service is actually a first to fit under Universal’s Total Music plan whereby carriers or device manufacturers tithe Universal a fee of about $5 per month for each device sold. While it appears free to end users, the cost is baked into the handset and/or data plans from your friendly neighborhood carriers. Oh, and it’s slathered in DRM — PlaysForSure DRM in fact making your tracks incompatible with both Zunes and iPods. Burning a CD will require an “upgrade purchase” for the tracks you received for free. Look, we don’t mind paying for tracks, in fact, we expect to. But all this underhanded sneakiness is just silly. This is not the future (at least we hope not).
Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments
Office Depot Featured Gadget: Xbox 360 Platinum System Packs the power to bring games to life!
Topics: Gadgets |
« Keyport Slide now ready for your $295 | Main | The $4 Wireless Sensor Bar: for that special Wii in your life »
Comments
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Similar Posts
- BMG joins Universal on Nokia’s (delayed) free Comes with Music service
Nokia: Comes with Music tracks are WMA 192kbps and 128kbps
Nokia’s “Comes with Music” free subscription service — cancel, keep the music
Nokia: our Comes with Music service is not Universal’s Total Music
The Nokia Music Store video review — hint: a “doddle” is good
Sony BMG to add DRM-free MP3s to Amazon
NuVo releases Wireless USB Syncing Device for NV-M3 Music Server
Omnifone to be the first with 3G subscription music downloads?
Apple evaluating “all you can eat” iTunes option?
Sync your Creative Zen with your Zune Pass tracks lately?
Sony Ericsson Unwraps Slim New Phones
Sanyo’s 8GB voice recorder: ready for the 1,000 hour filibuster
Microsoft rebrands PlaysForSure to Certified For Windows Vista, confuses world
Landmark news from EMI, DRM free music on iTunes
Nokia, like Apple, will seek its slice of the revenue sharing pie
Engadget founder Peter Rojas’s new digital music site RCRD LBL launches
Amazon starts dishing out DRM-free Warner Music MP3s
LG’s new LN840 PND hits the FCC
Ways to Gain Access to Free Music Downloads for Ipod
Microsoft turns the DRM screw on MSN Music owners
















