Warner Music and BMG are now offering a piece of Norwegian anti-piracy p2p technology through which owners of mobile phones equipped with MMS (multimedia messaging) can share "copyright protected content" (ie, music and movie clips) with other mobile users.

From Oslo-based Beep Science AS, the "Pan-European mobile DRM implementation is interoperable with more than 50 mobile operators using Netsize premium messaging network," Beep said when it announced its OMA DRM server in Geneva on October 10.

"We at BMG are excited that finally we have a mobile music service that protects our rights and that will generate music revenues from mobile content distribution," said BMG Finland's Kimmo Valtanen, and, "The mobile distribution channel and premium music services will become an increasingly important when multimedia mobile telephones are hitting the market," stated Warner Music Finland's Tuomo Korpinen.

"Warner Music would like to explore the business opportunities connected to secure peer-to-peer superdistribution of music over wireless networks. With distribution of truetones in original versions the mobile channel becomes interesting for a record company."

Beep said Mobile DRM will prevent "illegal distribution" of "media objects" and provide new "controlled" business models and distribution channels such as preview, gifting and superdistribution (p2p distribution).

I give it two weeks before there's a crack...

what kind of sound quality can you get through a mobile phone. anyone who pays for that is crazy

they think we will buy any old shit.

Bet the muppets dreaming this up would never buy music for/via a phone, yet they expect us to lap it up.

sickening.

No crack for this one, the technologies too hard to interface too. Mobiles dont run third-party software such as cracks, except for a few games which run ina virtualised enviroment. But, quality will be pathetic. First, the bitrate is going to be fairly low. Mobiles were designed for speech. Then theres the DAC, a music-compatable phone will need a decent quality chip which adds to the price. Finally, a headphone socket (not just an earphone) will be required, which would be quite difficult to fit into a modern cramped phone.

Theres also the compatability problems that affect all new mobile technology. There are a lot of handset manufacturers and networks, and they dont often cooperate on interoperability. Until recently it was almost impossible to send a video message to a user on another network with another handset. Now its only unreliable. How long will it take to standardise high-bitrate compression, new transfer protocols, secure storage and DRM?

Agreed.

A music capable phone makes me think "Just because you *can* do something, doesn't mean you *should*."

You say 'no crack for this one' - I think it is crackable, but the plain truth is *nobody will care*. It is a stupid nut to want to crack.

This "convergence" this is just BS. I', quite happy with for example an iPod AND a cel phone. To me it would be annoying to have somebody send me a "music clip" on my cel phone (btw - paying for connection charges while downloading a 5Mb music file - hello?), compared to somebody sending me a link to something via e-mail...

So they picked a good test case, just because it is too stupid to care... Nobody'll care to crack, thus a "victory!" for them.

It runs a program, therefore it can be modified. It runs software that users can upload to the phone, therefore it can be modified without changing hardware. So yes it can be cracked, probably easier than some other handheld devices. Will it be cracked? Who knows. I personally can berely hear the people I am talking to through those crappy little speakers. I even have a headset for it, and thats not much better. If they fixed that little issue I would be happy. However, the integration of communications products is in-evitable. A radio is a communication device, it is simply one way. A cell phone is two way. The networks required are already in place. Now a p2p service over a cell almost sounds like a good idea, but I'm thinking about it for other reasons than them. I personally would never pay to use a p2p service. Especially if I am paying per work I download. It's like me saying to you that I am going to take your internet connection bandwidth and sell it to this other person over hear. And I'm going to keep all of the profits and charge you to participate. You will be able to purchase the bandwidth I claim from other people. Yes it is a working concept, just yet anothe RIAA concept that strives to minimize or negate consumer surplus. However, a cool p2p network of cell phones would be one that links the actual cell phones together in their own network. So one user would talk to others by bouncing signals off other customers. Using some good encryption methods one could keep the data out of the hands of the people you bounce the signal around on. In this way no one firm would be in control of the communications. It would in fact be even less vulnerable to corporate attack than the internet where with a cell phone we would not need to signup for access to centralized locations. That would be a cool cell phone P2P.

Music is overrated we need to communicate our thoughts not just others.

And rex someone might crack just for the reason you described. Most crackers don't analyze supply v. demand. Most like the challenge more than the act it self.

Oh and about the bandwidth issue. Under the current technology it is not an issue.
Many current cell phones use 2G technology or 2nd Generation. This operates at only 14Kbits/s. Defently not enough, but... A lot of 2.5G phones are out and even some are using 3G now. 2.5G operates at 384Kbits/s. 3G operates at 2Mbits/s. Yes thats bits, so devide by ten you'll be pretty close to what you would have in bytes. 2G wouldn't cut it. 2.5G would work. I know a lot of people with cable modems that don't get a full 38K/s, but they'll download music all day. 3G would give you around 200K/s which would run good audio and video.

first drivers on phones now drivers on phones listening to poor quality music, where will it ever end?

All ass'es have a crack.

and most don't have a green vapor coming out