"Free" As In "Pay for It Later"

04-22-2008 | 12:16 AM EST

Sony BMG has recently announced that it will become the second major record label to sign onto cell phone maker Nokia's "Comes With Music" handsets. First announced back in December of 2007, Comes With Music will give Nokia brand cell phone owners twelve months of access to Universal and Sony BMG's music libraries at no additional cost beyond the phone/service plan. It's also rumored that EMI will soon be adding its musical catalog to the mix. For their part, the record companies will receive a portion of the sales of each handset. (While the exact details of that relationship are still somewhat unclear, it looks like the agreement might be something like $5 per month per device sold.) For Nokia's part, they'll of course be hoping to retain their position as the market leading handset maker (currently with about a 40% share of the global handset market). And, of course, because the "free" access stops after twelves months, Nokia will be betting that people won't want the music to stop, so they'll purchase a new handset each year. And what about the consumers? Nokia says that you'll be able keep the music on your phone that you downloaded during the first twelve months. But, what they're not drawing a great deal of attention to is the PlaysForSure DRM that your songs will be captured in. According to Engadget back in December, this means that your music will be "incompatible with both Zunes and iPods. Burning a CD will require an 'upgrade purchase' for the tracks you received for free." This is a great example of where, for the consumer, free doesn't really mean free as in speech or as in beer!

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