Comes With Music goes with a whimper

One of the most bullish proposed iTunes killers of the last couple of years, Nokia's Comes With Music, has been axed.

Surprisingly, the obtuse rebranding of the all-you-can-eat-up-to-a-limit service as Ovi Music didn't mark a sudden flourishing of take-up, and while China and a few other Eastern nations will keep the service, in most countries it's being switched off. All that's left is for Nokia to try and pretend that it's dumping Comes because, you know, they're just way too busy with something else, that's better, but you can't see what it is, because it's a secret, right, and you wouldn't understand:

"We are currently working with our partners to deliver new, innovative music services as part of the Ovi experience during 2011," said a spokesman for Nokia. "As we focus on delivering these ... we plan to cease producing Ovi Music Unlimited-edition devices at the end of the year."

Yeah, that's it. New, innovative things that aren't actually ready to announce yet, but they're going to smother this other thing now anyway. Yes.

Comes With Music now comes without Nokia brand

Comes With Music - you remember, it killed iTunes a couple of years back - is no longer going to be branded with Nokia. They're lobbing it under the Ovi brand, instead.

The Register rightly snorts at the move here:

A spokesperson explained the move:

"The new name is also simpler for music fans around the world to understand, and when presented in local language, will better communicate our truly local service proposition in each market. In doing so, we are giving our users a simplified, Ovi-branded experience."

Quite right.

People often ask, "What's a Nokia? - is it some new kind of yoga or a fashionable new diet?" Then you remind them - it's the platform for the Ovi mobile services experience - and the fog of confusion quickly clears.

Nokia had previously had some fun branding a service that only allowed you to download a certain, unknown amount of music as "unlimited" on the basis that it was unlimited, until you hit the limit.

Comes With Music comes with longer contracts

The slowly sinking Comes With Music Service has waved a distress flag in the UK, offering its few customers a free contract extension as it suddenly realises it has no idea how to handle renewals. Reuters explains:

Nokia had said previously that consumers could extend their 12 month music packages on a monthly-basis through mobile operators. But the first subscribers in Britain were prepaid clients to the 12 month music package, and were not linked to particular operators.

Analysts said Nokia's latest move also reflects the company's uncertainty about how to renew subscriptions for customers who do not have an operator package and who do not want to buy a new phone with the service.

There's added uncertainty, as it's not clear where the money for the tracks downloaded by subscribers will come from. Clearly, Nokia isn't afraid of losing its shirt on this deal - so there can't be much expectation of anyone actually using CWM that much. And now they've got three months to try and work out how to make the system work.

Comes With Music comes with a long delay in the US

Nokia doesn't seem to be rushing to bring Comes With Music to the US: it's putting back a planned launch to 2010.

Forbes is suggesting that Nokia has been underwhelmed by take-up of the service in established markets; network operators don't seem to be that keen on offering CWM, either.

Comes With Music expands a little

The initial take-up of Comes With Music - Nokia's music-subscription-with-a-phone - hasn't been entirely stellar, with suggestions that only 23,000 people have signed up so far. Although those that have it are very keen on the service.

Now, Nokia have done a deal with Orange to bring a CWM handset to another network:

Orange will be the only UK network to offer the service, marketing it through five plans ranging from £25 a month for 200 minutes, 300 texts and unlimited music to £45 a month for 1200 minutes, 500 texts and unlimited music.

The sting? If you want to have the music directly on your phone, you'll still have to pay for the data transfer. Which makes free music quite expensive.

MIDEM 2009: Comes With Music, but that's easily dealt with

The pre-Midem MidemNet digital music conference is underway down in the South Of France, where somehow these companies who have to fight for every cent have managed to send their executives and sub-executives to find out stuff they could get for free on the internet.

Musically has been liveblogging an interview with Dr Tero Ojanpera, the EVP of "entertainment and communities" with Nokia. He has, obviously, been talking mostly about Comes With Music, giving an interesting little nugget about the "fair use" limit, and how it's not just us who is curious to see exactly where that limit might lie:

“We are seeing some people downloading hundreds of tracks a month initially, but when the base expands this will be even more like a bell curve. There were some bloggers who went and downloaded a lot, but once they noticed Nokia was not doing anything, they gave up! We are not really seeing anybody who is abusing the service. It’s validating all the research that was done before - this is how people will use it - some will use a lot, some will use a little, and it will average out.”

You'll notice he doesn't say that Nokia believed that the exploratory downloaders failed to breach a limit of fair use, just that Nokia chose to not do anything. Sadly, nobody seems to have bothered asking Ojanpera why the company won't just come out and say what it considers to be fair use of its service, and why it childishly keeps the figure secret.

Why doesn't it trust its customers with the actual rules for a service that they're paying for? It just seems to be cussed secrecy for the sake of it.

Also interesting is that some people are buying Comes With Music handsets, and not bothering with the music:

“What we are seeing three months in in the UK is that the consumption pattern is like a bell curve. There are certain users that don’t activate, and then a really nice bell curve where we are seeing good downloads in the middle and…”

[Moderator Bill] Werde [of Billboard] interjects - why are some people not activating? Ojanpera says some simply missed the offer. Bizarre.

I'll agree with Music Ally's "bizarre" response - given that the marketing is garishly insistent about Comes With Music, the suggestion that people might not realise that their Comes With Music phone comes with music seems a little odd. Surely the other possibility - that you can offer people unlimited music for no extra money, and they can't even be arsed to explore the offering - is far more fascinating. And worrying, for the music industry. And psychologically fascinating.

And are people buying in to the service in large numbers?

So, the UK then. The price point of the 5310 has lowered, and reports suggest sales aren’t good. Why? “I don’t want to put you on the spot” says Werde. Why not?!

Anyway, Ojanpera’s response, pointing out that Nokia has been expanding the device base for CWM in the UK. “Our target is not any more about ‘this is a few specific devices’, but going forward we will have this in all price points, and make this a mass-market phenomenon.”

Surely, if you can have Comes With Music in the cheapo end of the market, that must mean the money that's flowing to the labels, and then on to the artists, must be piffling beyond belief?

And what about the simplicity of the offering?

Is the offer simple enough, asks Werde? “One thing is of course, this comes back to the marketing, and that needs to be fine-tuned all the time. The actual product is so simple - one year of music, unlimited downloads in your phone and your PC. That’s simple enough, and a great offer.”

Of course, the offering isn't simple at all, when you look at it - and get down to fine details of owning the tracks forever, but requiring a DRM key, which you can only change once past the subscribing period. It's not that this is a totally unfair rule from Nokia's point of view - if you run DRM servers, you're not going to want to commit to long periods of fiddling for people who aren't paying you any more - but it complicates the offering more than it should. Interesting, then, that Nokia don't seem all that bothered about trying to crawl out from under the DRM tarpaulin.

Now Nokia's ComesWithDRM can be set free

Introducing Tunebite, a piece of software that removes the DRM from ComesWithMusic, which means that the service will now actually do what the adverts claim, and let you keep any tracks you download forever.

It's not a hack: apparently, it just plays the songs really, really quickly and re-records them to a clean file that doesn't have the DRM which locks "your" music to "one PC, one phone" once you stop giving money to the company - and, of course, can do the same thing for other company's music files.

Interestingly, it claims it's legal. The RIAA may take another view.

A closer look at Comes With Music

So, there's been some to-and-fro over the claims made for Nokia's Comes With Music: the initial claim that you could download "as much music" - "unlimited", even - and keep it forever seemed to good to be true. Was it?

The Nokia Comes With Music website insists it's not. In answer to rhetorical question "how much music can I download" it's unequivocal:

You can download as much music as you want during your service term

Well, my apologies, Nokia - I thought you were going to put a limit on... hang about a moment... on the Carphone Warehouse site, they're also offering Comes With Music phones, with Unlimited downloads - only theirs has a tiny asterisk next to it. Because terms and conditions apply:

*subject to personal non-commercial and reasonable use. Failure to comply with the terms and conditions may result in termination of the service.

That there is a limit isn't a problem. It's fair enough, Nokia aren't a charity and you wouldn't expect them to allow you to take everything in one scoop. The problem is, though, there's no indication what Nokia might consider a "reasonable" level of downloading to be: 120 songs? 1000? half a million?

Your licence to download Comes With Music Content is limited to your personal non-commercial and reasonable use. If our analysis of your use of the Service suggests abusive or excessive downloading, Nokia may contact you and ask you to moderate your usage. If you fail to comply with such a request, Nokia reserves the right to restrict or terminate your use of the Service.

Blimey - it's not just the possibility that Nokia might conclude you're downloading too many tracks, it could just think you're being abusive. But if you buy a phone on an advertising promise that you can download as much as you like, how can it be abusive if that much turns out to be more than Nokia would like?

Regardless of where the limit sits, it's simply a lie to say that a service is unlimited when it is actually limited, however reasonable that limit might be. And without making it clear in advance what that level of cut-off might be, how on earth are you supposed to make a judgement call about the value of the service?

Still, at least once you download those songs, they're yours to keep forever, right?

The Nokia website is encouraging:

What happens to my music when the Comes With Music Service expires?
You can keep all the tracks you have downloaded and listen to them...

That sounds promising...

... on your registered PC

Ah, and there would be the sting. Once again, though, we have to go to the Carphone Warehouse to have the limitations explained in a bit more detail:

Registration of Authorised Devices. You may register one personal computer ("PC") and one Comes With Music Device concurrently to the Service.

Yes, just one computer. And the only mobile device you can use is your phone. So if you'd like to, say, listen to the music you've supposedly paid for in your car, you better make sure that you're able to hook your phone up to your stereo. Use a waterproof player for when you're on the beach or swimming? Tough. Got a PC in the living room and the bedroom? Or a PC and a laptop? Sorry.

The unlimited download starts to look more limited in the other sense of the word, too.

But can you move your stuff from computer to computer?

In the event you purchase a new compatible Nokia mobile device or a compatible PC or in the event of technical failure of your registered Comes With Music Device or PC you may restore the Comes With Music Content you have downloaded and/or change your registered Authorised Devices according to the following rules:

a) Restoration of Comes With Music Content
PC: During the Service Period and for a period of two years after the end of the Service Period ("Restoration Period") you may change the registered PC once every three months and re-download the content files and/or the digital keys needed to play the Comes With Music Content you had previously downloaded and/or transfer the Comes With Music Content you had previously downloaded to your new registered PC from your Comes With Music Device.

Comes With Music Device: If you upgrade your Comes With Music Device to another compatible Nokia device during the Restoration Period, you may change the registered Comes With Music Device once every three months which will allow you to transfer the Comes With Music Content you have downloaded from your PC to the new registered device and/or re-download the content files and/or the digital keys needed to play the Comes With Music Content you had previously downloaded. Please note that you are not able to change your registered Comes With Music Device during the Service Period.
Please note that during the Restoration Period you are able to change either the registered PC or Comes With Music Device once every three months, but not both of them during that period of time. Once you have changed your registered PC or Comes With Music Device, your rights to use the Comes With Music Content on the previous PC and Comes With Music Device shall expire and continued access to suchcontent on the previous PC or Comes With Music Device does not form part of the Service and may no longer be possible.

So, then, the tracks are yours to keep - but not to do as you choose with; and only for the two years after you leave the service, not forever. Oh, and only if you don't change your PC or phone more than every three months. And if you do change your phone, you're not even able to change your PC. And after two years is up? You can't even shift at all then.

So, Nokia Comes With Music does, indeed, come with some music - and, effectively, it takes its music away with it when the handset fails. It's impossible to say if it's a good deal or not financially, as there's no indication of just what you're getting. It is clear, though, that CWM doesn't offer any way of building a digital music collection. It's probably a nice add on if you're getting that phone anyway, but it's no way to buy music.

Comes with confusion: Nokia claim there's no 120 song limit

The story of Nokia's Comes With Music deal gets even more tortuous: The Times Mousestrap blog asked Nokia if it was true there was a cap of 120 tracks on users. Unlike back in September when The Guardian asked, and Nokia gave a vague response, Nokia are now denying there's any limit at all:

Once you have bought a Nokia Comes With Music device, there is no per-track cost for these unlimited downloads. There have been some media reports that there is a maximum of 120 tracks but this is not correct.

You'll note the careful wording of there being "no per-track cost", which isn't quite the same thing as "free". Still, there's no limit on downloads, then?

Right?

Your licence to download Comes With Music Content is limited to your personal, non-commercial and reasonable use. If our analysis of your use of the service suggests abusive or excessive downloading, Nokia may contact you and ask you to moderate your usage. If you fail to comply with such a request, Nokia reserves the right to restrict or terminate your use of the service.

So the general guidance we give is that you can download as much music as you want as long as you use the service for your own personal, non-commercial use.

So there is a limit, you just don't know what it is in advance - and it's what Nokia deem to be "reasonable". Perhaps Nokia might like to share what their concept of "reasonable" is with their customers before asking them to buy a service. It would seem to be hard to decide if a deal is a good one if you don't know how many tracks you're being allowed to buy. And it's not entirely straight to suggest a service is unlimited when, erm, there actually is a limit on usage - however generous and understandable that might be.

Comes With Music doesn't, actually, come with music

There's been much excitement over Nokia's Comes With Music phone, pegging it as a simultaneous iPhone and iTunes killer. And you can see where the thrill lies - you buy a phone, and you get access to Nokia's fabulous music library, forever, for free.

Only now that a deal has been struck with a carrier - 3, in the UK - it turns out to not be quite so sweet a deal after all. Andrew Orlowski runs through the small print:

Comes With Music reportedly bundles "free and unlimited" music downloads with selected Nokia handsets. But actually, it doesn't. Downloads are limited to 120 per year*, and there's an upfront charge of £129.95 at Carphone Warehouse. So it more accurately resembles the Britannia CD club model: pay up front and get some albums.

Sharp-eyed readers will notice the weasel words in Nokia's press release:

"Comes With Music offers one year of unlimited access to the entire Nokia Music Store catalogue…"

But access to the Store is not the same as unlimited downloads, of course. Asked about this, Nokia's EVP of entertainment Tero Ojanpera repeated that unlimited meant unlimited access, not downloads.

So, that would be Comes Without Music But You Can Pay For Music If You Like. Just Not Too Many Tunes, Eh? Don't Go Mad Or Anything. Two Songs A Week.

Oh, and if we've done the maths correctly, at £129 for 120 songs, that's not only not free, but more expensive than average downloads.

[UPDATE: Nokia's PR team have been denying there's a 120 song limit but admit there is a "reasonable" usage clause in the deal.]

Download later

Today have just run a piece on the launch of Nokia's 'comes with music' handset, out of which nobody came out with much honour, to be honest.

A representative of MySpace UK showed off the MySpace music service, burbling about how it turns MySpace into your music hub on the web or something similar - before Rory Clellan-Jones pointed out that it's not if you live in the UK.

Some fans of The Script were given a chance to explain their justifications for not paying for music, which they delivered with the tone of people who had read something on the internet rather than like it was something they believe - "oh, yeah, I see music as pretty much a marketing tool these days" (do you really? But what about the vast majority of songs that don't get used as marketing tools? Is it okay to not pay for a Damon and Naomi song simply because a Kula Shaker song appears in an advert for apple sauce?); "I think the days of paying for music are over, I'm afraid" (what about the billions of tracks getting paid for through iTunes? Or the racks of CDs in HMV?).

Then they actually spoke to a member of The Script - I couldn't work out why they'd been playing a cover version of a Keane song under the piece, but it turned out that it was them. Script man claimed that he was cool with downloading because "if someone downloads your song, they'll tell 10,000 other people" - which seems to be wrong; downloading makes it more likely that people will sample a song than they would otherwise, but surely it's the people who care about your music enough to spring a little bit of cash for it are more likely to turn into your ad hoc promotion force than those who are merely downloading it on the off-chance?

Finally, a bloke from Omnifone, the company which powers the Sony-Ericcson version of Comes With Music, trumpeted that the way to get people to pay for music is to arrange things so "they don't know they're paying for it". Isn't taking money from people for something that they don't realise they're paying for at the more fraudulent end of unethical?

The whole piece seemed to have been constructed from people who had a shaky grasp on the subjects they were discussing, or, at best, hadn't really thought through what they were saying.