Interesting post at MocoNews from the World Mobile Congress. Rob Wells, Universal Music Group SVP of Digital, talked about the goals of the company with an almost cinematic flair.

The start and endgame for Universal and, indeed, the industry worldwide, is providing consumers with blanket access through a celestial jukebox anytime, at home, in the car. This is the next step in the utopian future for music...

And this about temporal pricing:

If an artist has just delivered an album from studio, we could potentially deliver it to a limited number of users for a higher price. It’s something we’re quite keen to develop; for example, through our own B2C channels - artists websites.

There are different definitions of "utopian future." UMG sees paid services as the future, as evidenced by its Total Music plan and Nokia's Comes With Music mobile service.. Others see the best route as unhindered P2P, which would certainly have more content and would be closer to a true celestial jukebox.

The pricing comment is worth taking a look at. Labels have yet to do a whole lot of direct-to-consumer stuff (other than merchandise) but that should change. Fan clubs and artist websites offer ways to deliver music and bring a sense of scarcity to digital downloads. If the iTunes and the Amazons of the world won't raise their prices for time-sensitive releases, artists and labels can go it alone.