Now Hear This: Cellphone Remixes

(sub. req.): Sony and Universal Music are working with their top artists to remix their songs into 90-second-to-two-minute versions–song clips–designed for sale through cellphones.

The two record companies, units of Vivendi Universal SA and Sony Corp., have signed a deal with cellphone operator T-Mobile, to sell these “Mobile Mix” tracks to consumers in UK, Germany and the Austria, beginning next month. If the idea proves popular in Europe, T-Mobile hopes to launch a similar service in the U.S. So far, T-Mobile has assembled a library of 200 songs for the new service.

Guardian (reg. req.): The company claims it will take less than two minutes to download the excerpts in high quality, allowing customers to sample tracks before they buy. With the shift to 3G networks, it plans to offer full tracks from the labels concerned.

Netimperative: Mobile Jukebox will be the first service in the UK that enables consumers to download and listen to songs direct from their handset. Rival operator O2 launched a mobile music service earlier this year, but this requires a separate digital music player retailing at about £100 to store and listen to tracks. Both services allow users to store up to 64 tracks and preview songs before buying. The T-Mobile service costs £2.50 per download, compared to O2’s £1.50.

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