DISQUS

ah, I disagree that its "crap". from the press release, the scope of the service is tons of music for your PC and mobile. not all music to give away to all your friends and neighbors. In that sense, I'm not sure why DRM matters if you have music on your PC and with you on your mobile.

Compare to other "rental" services... this seems quite similar. No other subscription service that I have seen has CD burning included. Other subscription services only work on PC and the subscription device. But if you stop paying, all your content dies. At least with Nokia, it seems they are letting you keep it all. So it sounds like its the most flexible subscription service. You arent tied to it forever if you leave. (Dont forget...Apple has super restrictive DRM too for the majority of their catalogue, too! And no subscription service...so every download needs to be paid for).


Also, WHY in this day and age do you really need to burn a CD? I connect my mobile to my car and home stereos and dont have to worry about CD taking up space or not having the music I want with me/ or having to change CDs to get the music I want. I just create playlists or choose the album I want and its there.

Anyway, I just think your post on this shows a lack of understanding about ditial music current offerings. From someone coming from the music industry, I think its admirable that a company like Nokia is trying to make a service that could work as well as P2P if all the labels play nice which would end up able to actually get money back to the people who make music.

Sounds like you buy your phone, and you plug and play to then get the music you want on it. No need to illegally steal the music from P2P if the experience is easy, seamless, and you dont have to pay any more to get it. for yourself.

Anyway, thats my two cents.

I think some of the comments are just meant to bait nokia fans or be inflammatory to get more website hits. :-)

Here's my take on it:

1. The vast majority of iTunes catalogue is still DRMed with Fairplay. And those tracks only work on Apple iProducts.

I just purchased 5 songs from the new releases in iTunes. All were only 128kbsp, not the 196kbsp of the songs I purchased from Nokia Music Store.

So the comments about Apple's embracing DRM-free and better sound quality isnt legit when it only applies to a small percentage their entire catalogue.

2. If you must have DRM protected content, at least WM DRM works on multiple devices unlike Fairplay (apple). Songs from Nokia's store play on multiple brands of phones (nokia, samsung, sony walkman, etc) + many portable music players. (and WM DRM, mp3s, songs CD ripped from iTunes, wavs and more play on many Nokia phones) So at least the music you buy isnt locked to one device or brand.

I am not a fan of DRM, but if the labels demand it, WM DRM isnt any more horrible than Fairplay.


3. Although its a bit of a hack, Firefox does work with Nokia Music store if you use the IE add-on (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/...) So if you are a die-hard Firefox fan but want to play with the site, you can.

4. As other comments have pointed out, this was launched as a UK Beta, not a worldwide offering. So to complain that its only in the UK may be disappointing, but not a fault of the store.

5. Almost every other digital music store in EU with major label content uses WM DRM. Sony Walkman's store tried their own drm, failed and are now using WM DRM if I remember right.

From what I've seen from other music sites: of the four major lables, at least two wont offer their content without some kind of DRM.

Non-DRM indies only or Non-DRM content from major artists I dont listen to doesnt really help me. I can love the Amazon site, but without downloads from the artists I want, it doesnt do me any good.

Anyway, I dont care if someone thinks the Nokia store sucks. But I think that theres a lot of info and facts missing that help to determine if the store actually sucks or if this is just a troll rant.