Napster Japan (a joint venture between Napster and Tower Records) will soon launch its first over-the-air mobile music subscription service on DoCoMo. Napster has pay-per-download mobile music services (for example on KDDI, which charges a monthly fee for a limited number of downloads with further purchases possible) and a PC-based subscription service. The new Napster service on DoCoMo’s iMode service will offer unlimited listening and downloading of music via the mobile network for the first time. The new service will be on the soon-to-be-releaesd 904i series of handsets and will be included with the PC-based subscription service at no extra cost. This is a bonus for Napster because the vast majority of mobile music in Japan is via mobile, so it’ll be counting on picking up some new subscribers.
When DoCoMo subscribers download songs over the air the tracks will be bookmarked and added to their PC collection…users will also be able to view playlists availble on the PC and download them directly to their handsets. Sideloading will also be possible. Users will have the option (but not the obligation) to pay for the service via their phone bill.
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