Napster, a fairly well known online music service that offers unlimited downloads for a flat rate subscription is set to launch a mobile phone based service in Ireland later this month on the Irish Telefonica's O2 network. This will also be Napster's first European launch, which will be hosted by Ericsson. The service will offer consumers what Napster claims to be the world's largest mobile music catalogue of over 3 million full length songs, artist images and ring tones. Consumers will be able to browse, search and preview tracks, along with the ability to purchase full length tracks to their mobile handset.
The service will initially launch through NTT DoCoMo's i-Mode, with its application pre-loaded on certain i-Mode O2 handsets and users will be able to view featured artists, top-selling tracks and recommendations based on the user's musical taste. From early next year, the service will then be made available to compatible handsets with WAP and java support. Then in February, users who purchase through Napster Mobile will also be able to download purchased tracks on their PC also.
Like Napster's PC based service, music downloaded via Napster Mobile will be restricted by DRM. It is unclear at this time how much tracks or albums will cost, if any unlimited download flat-rate subscription will be offered or if users will be allowed to write music to CD once Napster offers the ability to download Napster Mobile purchased content on their PC. Finally, as mobile handsets typically have a very limited memory capacity and consumers often change their mobile phone every year, hopefully Napster will offer consumers the ability to transfer or move music from one phone to another. Otherwise, it will be like one having to throw out their music collection everytime they decide to buy a new music player.
