That free music Nokia phone? not so much

If the Nokia phone with a year's worth of free music that we wrote about the other day sounded too good to be true, it's because it was. According to Engadget, pre-order pricing at UK retailers suggest that the "Comes With Free" phones will have a $150 premium over the same phones without music. That's a lot for music that you don't own and can only listen to for a year.

Comments

[Zorro]

Hahahahaha the **IA really don't get it do they? Roll on extinction...

[Goncalo Barral]

I keep thinking it's a good deal. Much less than 1 cent per music. Bottom line, the songs average life cycle is probably less than one year and the trend is to be even less. Now it depends what will be the price for the second year services. Nevertheless I keep thanking in advance NOKIA for this. Mr. Steve Jobs will react soon......you'll see.

[Craig]

Thanks for the clarification. It sounded way too good to be true and initially I thought this may really help take some steam away from the iphone. Guess not now.

Craig
www.budgetpulse.com

[jhc]

as per nokia's press release, carphone warehouse's press release, and your own previous post, you can listen to the downloaded songs even after your subscription ends: as you said in http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/09/buy-the-phone-g.html "...or cut it off and keep your original song files."

[Thomas]

The price is high, I agree. But I don`t agree with the statement:

"That's a lot for music that you don't own and can only listen to for a year."

The question is: Who needs to own music anymore? Isn`t access to music enough? Where is my risk, when i make a deal with nokia today for a year and will maybe change the subscription service next year to apple or whoever.
I always will have the chance to have access to more music than I ever can hear... to my music... many users don`t realize that yet, but they will.

[Paul Kamp]

This is DRM in different clothing. Or it is a subscription service in different clothing. $150 for a year of music is $12.50/month. The market will decide the fate of this endeavor. I suspect it will judge it harshly.

[cartouches d encre]

I don't know about US, but due to the way contracts work here, people tend to change phones less often than, let's say, Hong Kong. In HK, when they say they give you a price for a phone if you stick with them for 2 years, you pay the full price, then they give some back each month. Over here, it's 20 bucks each month you have left in your contract withdrawl fee, causing quite some pain to back out of a contract...