..it’s been a month of musical news but are operators getting it right?
Earlier this month T-Mobile launched its Jukebox music download service, which is part of its Ear Phones catch-all brand, the umbrella name it has given to all its music related services. At the moment, the Jukebox service is limited to five handsets in the market, and 500 tracks. By the end of the year there could be as many as 15 enabled handsets and half a million tracks available. The service is built around DRM technology founded on the Open Mobile Alliance v1.0 specification. This means any user that wants to access the handset will have to have a handset with the correct software load. At the moment this means the Nokia 7600 and 6230, the Motorola E398 and the SonyEricsson P900 and K700. T-Mobile is leaning on the manufacturers to produce more versions with the OMA DRM by Christmas.
Once a request for a download is made T-Mobile’s platform will discover what kind of device is making the request, which media player is embedded in the device and if the device supports OMA DRM. The MP3 file is then transcoded into the relevant codec and sent to the phone. This means the user doesn’t need to download any application onto the phone, something which T-Mobile thinks is vital if the service is to hit the mass market.
At the beginning of the service, only edited formats of full tracks will be available. T-Mobile is calling these Mobile Mixes — 90-120 versions of the full track. By Christmas the service will support full track download. Listeners will be allowed to listen to a track twice before deciding if they want to buy. Tracks will cost GBP1.50 in the UK and EUR1.50 in T-Mobile’s other European markets. T-Mobile is insistent that the delivery of these edited versions is to meet the behaviour patterns of people listening to and sharing music when on the move. It also serves to keep down download times which they say will be 30 seconds in 3G and two minutes over GPRS for its Mobile Mix format.
T-Mobile has launched the service with content from four of the big five music publishers. The publishers have said it was the operator’s willingness to listen to their concerns over DRM and marketing that has given them a lead. The music companies are bound to want to work with other operators, and in fact are already doing so, but T-Mobile has taken a lead, both men said.
So T-Mobile has brought five main themes to the music download content model. First – there needs to be a wide range of handsets available, rather than one or two feature handsets or dedicated music players. Secondly, there must be no need for a user to download an application to the handset. Thirdly, publishers must trust and be able to exploit DRM technology. Fourthly, DRM should be open-standards based to keep the market as simple as possible for the service providers. Fifthly – It’s a premium service. EUR1.50 for a two minute edit is not cheap.
T-Mobile itself has stressed Jukebox is still in its very early stages, and there may well be changes to come. But for now it is to be applauded for attempting to address the range of concerns, from technical to marketing, to try and crack mobile music in the mass market.
Until next time, happy listening and if you want to send us your own lyrics, please mail me at: keith.dyer@nexusmedia.com