Big news for mobile-music fans: Nokia and Universal have teamed up to offer free music downloads to owners of certain Nokia handsets.

While Ares is still tops for music downloads among computer users, the market for mobile music downloads is still wide open.
In what many are calling a major step in the evolution of cellphones into mobile media devices, Nokia users will soon be able to download music for free to be used for up to 12 months.

Universal is also set to permit Nokia users to download songs to phones or computers through mobile or fixed-line Internet connections. Nokia users will pay a subscription fee allowing them to download DRM-free tunes that can be kept beyond the 12-month subscription limit. Universal will, of course, get a share of the cut, with a percentage of revenue from the handsets going to the music giant.

The service is expected to become available some time in the second half of 2008 and other major record companies may follow suit and also join up with Nokia, according to reports.

Are we about to witness a mobile-music revolution? at least this shows that the music industry is starting to move with the times and companies are seeing that people want music downloads, as Pepsi did with its free music download proposal recently.

 Enjoyed this? Subscribe to the feed.