MP3 for your Handset - Free? Surely Not?

[Hands0n]

Prologue: I hate and detest all forms of DRM that restrict or limit a user in what they can, or cannot, do with the music that they have legitimately bought. The music industry blatantly consider all electronic music player users "Pirates" - for example EMI had a lot to say about such users last year. Summed up, we are all stinky pirates and deserve to be prosecuted. Nice one.

Okay, I suppose that it had to happen sooner or later. Free music to become a reality? Who knows for sure, but it seems to be on the horizon that ad-sponsored "free" music may just be around the corner. Consider how important music is to the world at large - can the ad companies resist the opportunity to peddle their wares to the non-paying-for music fan? I doubt that they could.

A potential new vendor is Spiral Frog

SpiralFrog is a new online music destination, offering ad-supported legal downloads of audio and video content licensed from the catalogs of the world’s major and independent record labels.

SpiralFrog will be a secure environment where music lovers can satisfy their unyielding passion and thirst for music, entertainment, and information. Our site will be as multifaceted, smart, and current as the audience we hope to attract. An audience that we believe is the driving force behind the way music is created, discovered, and consumed today.

Headquartered in New York City, the SpiralFrog website will debut in December 2006.

IF they can actually pull this off there will be a worlwide coup of the likes of Apple's iTunes. We wait with bated breath

But ............. will us Europeans be given any access to this service?

SpiralFrog, the new music download destination, has signed an agreement with EMI Music Publishing, the world's leading music publishing company, to authorize SpiralFrog’s use of EMI's vast catalog of musical compositions available for legal downloading in the United States via SpiralFrog's advertising-supported service.

At this stage it seems not. Hmmmmmmmm *replaces eyepatch and feeds parrot*

Meanwhile ........................... where'd I put that CD I was going to rip this afternoon?