Correction: Dow Jones has corrected this story, pointing out it is the parent company of China Unicom trialling the service and that EMI has not signed on to the program, but is in talks to do so.
China Unicom is trialling a music download service with songs from 23 record companies, including the big four — EMI Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment (SNE), Warner Music Group (WMT) and Universal Music Group. The move is a bid to “boost revenue and curb piracy by giving consumers convenient channels to buy legitimate music” reports Dow Jones via EasyBourse. The service is called Xuan Qu and sells song downloads for 3-5 yuan (US$0.39-0.66), with the DRM preventing users from transferring music to other mobile phone users or to computers. There’s no mention made of whether users will be able to move the music files when they upgrade their handset. The trial will finish at the end of September, and China Unicom will review the results before starting a second trial with more users in October. Sony BMG and Warner Music Group have formed a music-focused JV in Russia with a similar aim of reducing piracy by making legitimate music easier to buy.
Redline China is also reporting that China Unicom has launched an unlimited data plan for 35 yuan (US$4.61) a month, with limited packages for between 5-25 yuan also being offered. “The rate plan applies only to the company
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