Nokia Promises Year of Free Music with New Phones

The Finnish phone giant just unveiled its ambitious "Comes with Music" program: a year of free, unlimited music with every new phone, and you'll be able to keep your tunes when the year is up. Is it too good to be true?

Nokia execs unveiled the upcoming program at the Nokia World conference in Amsterdam; details are still sketchy, but the proposal sure sounds enticing. The phone maker said it's already inked a deal with Universal Music, and added that talks are underway with the other major labels.

There's no word on when exactly the program will launch, or whether the music will be DRM-free or not, but Nokia reps said that when your year of free music is up, you'll be able to keep all your tunes. Whether the music will only play on your Nokia phone or also on your PC and other devices as well is an open question. Also, it sounds like the program is only for those buying a new Nokia phone.

Nokia's idea isn't new; there's been plenty of talk before of MP3 players that might come with a free music subscription, which would be subsidized by the manufacturers. Indeed, BusinessWeek reported in October that Universal Music was poking around the idea, and now here's Nokia's "Comes with Music" plan with Universal already signed up. Interesting.

From what I've heard, I like the broad strokes of Nokia's plan, which would certainly sweeten the pill of its pricey handsets ($500 for the 4GB version of its new N81 slider...ouch).

What do you think—would you be more likely to cough up several hundred dollars for a Nokia phone if you got a year's worth or free music in the bargain?

Update: Ars Technica reports that the free tunes will indeed come laiden with DRM—the PlaysForSure variety, to be exact, which won't work on iPods or Zunes. Also, you'll have to pay an extra fee to burn the tunes to CD. Finally, the deal involves Nokia paying $5 a month to Universal Music for each "free music" phone, which may well be passed along to cell chatters by way of higher handset prices or carrier service charges. Great.

Related:
Universal offers free music on Nokia phones [Reuters, via Yahoo! News]