PlayNow Arena is Sony Ericsson's attempt to follow its arch-competitor Nokia into the mobile content service market.  Few specifics are available about PlayNow Arena, but the company claims it will launch in the Scandinavian countries in May.  We assume that UMG is not participating because Sony Ericsson has not agreed to the Total Music licensing program for portable devices that UMG is promoting and that Nokia is supporting.

Apart from UMG's non-participation, the most interesting tidbit about this service is that, as the press release states, "The majority of the content is DRM free."  To us, this means that EMI and the many independent labels (including those distributed by IODA and The Orchard) will offer DRM-free tracks, while Warner Music Group (WMG) and Sony BMG Music will stick with DRM, presumably Windows Media DRM.  In other words, taken together, the catalogs of EMI and the indie labels exceed those of WMG and SonyBMG put together. 

The majors are in the process of abandoning DRM for paid permanent downloads, but this news confirms that this strategy is limited to Internet downloads and may not extend to the mobile world -- where services are more fragmented, content is not as easy to move around, and PCs tend not to be involved.  Of course, it is possible to move MP3 obtained on the Internet (e.g., on Amazon.com) to mobile phones, but the majors may be depending on the spread of high-speed wireless networking, which will make OTA downloading more convenient than side-loading from PCs to handsets.  Even so, USB cables don't sound like much of a "speed bump" to us.

Get DRM Watch Newsletter

Click here to subscribe to DRM Watch