DRM Woes; Nokia's Music Service On Way to U.S.

Although Nokia’s “Comes With Music” service has not been launched in the U.S. yet, people are wondering if it will come with DRM when it actually does.

Comes With Music is a service that Nokia offers to subscribers which allows them to download unlimited songs from a library containing millions of selections in the Nokia Music Store. Comes With Music is reportedly going to launch in the U.S. later this year, although it has been launched in Singapore and the United Kingdom – Australia is set to get it on March 20, 2009.

Subscription to Comes With Music adds approximately $100 to the cost of a phone. In the U.S. that phone will be the Nokia 5800 XpressMusic which was unveiled last week. The 5800 is viewed to be the challenger to the Apple iPhone.

The big question is, will the Comes With Music service include Digital Rights Management as it currently does, when it arrives in the U.S.? Currently, subscribers can download music on a single phone and make one copy on one computer and the songs remain playable after the subscription expires. However, iPhone recently removed all DRM protection from its music and video library available to customers of the iTunes Store.

Unlike Apple, which has only ever released two phones in its lifetime, not long ago, Nokia is no stranger to the mobile phone market. Nokia has not mentioned anything regarding DRM and the Comes With Music service for launch in the U.S. – it has also refrained from comments when asked.

With iTunes' dominance, it will interesting to see how this plays out when the service launches later this year.