• Sony BMG has signed up for Nokia's Comes With Music service. (Reuters)

• Nokia was not specific, but it denied paying Universal Music Group $35 for every handset that is part of the Comes With Music service. "We are not paying that amount to any record label," said a spokesperson. (paidContent)

• The International Association of Jazz Education has canceled its 2009 conference and will file for bankruptcy. (All About Jazz)

• EMI's restructuring is reportedly facing contractual obstacles: "issues concerning 'key man' clauses in artists' contracts; clauses in executive contracts that allow top staffers to leave if their responsibilities change or the company comes under new ownership or management; and challenges meeting deadlines by certain sectors of the company." An EMI representative denied all three. (Billboard)

• Current American Idol contestant David Cook does not yet have a major label deal, yet his self-released 2006 album rose to the #1 spot on Amazon.com MP3 store's album chart. As of last night, 87 customers had reviewed the album and 82 had given it five stars. (USA Today)

• EMI Christian will release twenty titles that each contain two albums by the same artist. The CD packages will list for $13.99. (Press release)

• SpiralFrog appointed former Maverick Recordings exec Russ Reiger to the new position of VP of strategic initiatives. (Press release)

• Widget-based music service Sonific will close its doors on May 1. In a message on the company's site, co-founder Gerd Leonhard blamed an "unworkable music licensing situation and the resulting lack of solid revenue modeling" and called the music industry "certifiably dysfunctional." (Sonific, via Billboard.biz)

Posted by Glenn at 8:44 AM | Link
|Nokia||Sony BMG|

A few specifics on Nokia's "Comes With Music" initiative came to light today. (Read this December 2007 press release for more info.) Comes with Music is a plan the mobile operator to allow subscribers access to a large catalog of music. Nokia would pay a fee for access to a music company's catalog of music. The fee would be absorbed by Nokia and presumably passed on (at least in part) to the consumer.

The Hollywood Reporter's Mark Halper says an unnamed, "well-informed mobile industry executive" put the per-handset amount at $35.

paidContent's James Quintana Pearce did a bit of digging and found a source that said the per-unit fee starts around $33.50 for the first 2.5 million units and scales down at higher volumes. The plan is said to include "a limited but relatively high number songs." The most interesting tidbit is the source's claim that Comes With Music is based on a download -- not a subscription -- model.

For those of you doing some quick math on the back of the nearest envelope, UMG had 28.8% of the global recorded market in 2007. Divide the market share into the per-unit fee of $33.50 and you get $116.32. That's what access to all music would cost if the other majors and all indies negotiated equivalent rates on a pro-rata basis.

Posted by Glenn at 9:41 PM | Link
|Comes With Music||Nokia||Universal Music Group|

A Nokia executive vice president offered some information on the company's Comes With Music service at the MIDEM conference. Bloomberg has the article.

• Nokia will share revenue with mobile operators. Said the executive, "In those cases where we cooperate with operators, there will be an arrangement so they can get a piece."
• Downloaded tracks will come with DRM. Users will be able to transfer tracks from handset to PC, but will not be able to transfer tracks between PCs.
• The service will not be available on existing phones. "You actually buy a device that is complete," he said. "You can't buy the same device without the content."

Posted by Glenn at 1:43 PM | Link
|Comes With Music||Conferences||Nokia|