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After years of futile efforts to stop digital pirates from copying its music, the music business has started to copy the pirates. An entrance on Sunday at the music industry’s conference in France, where Nokia said it was expanding Comes With Music. Online and mobile services offering listeners unlimited “free” access to millions of songs are set to proliferate in the coming months, according to music industry executives. Unlike illegal file-sharing services, which the music industry says are responsible for billions of dollars in lost sales, these new offerings are perfectly legal. The services are not really free, but payment is included in the cost of, say, a new cellphone or a broadband Internet access contract, so the cost to the consumer is disguised. And, unlike pirate sites, these services provide revenue to the music companies. Tero Ojanpera, who is in charge of developing entertainment services at Nokia, said at an industry conference here that Comes With Music would be expanded to Australia and Singapore during the first quarter of this year, and to other European countries later in 2009.The government of the Isle of Man announced plans for a system under which consumers with broadband subscriptions would be required to pay a nominal monthly license fee. They could then legally download music from any source, even peer-to-peer services that are outlawed currently. “At the end of the day, we are not going to stop piracy, so let’s embrace it,” said Ron Berry, the inward investment manager for the Isle of Man government. Internet service providers, which previously resisted calls for them to take an active role in stamping out piracy are looking to offer music in their broadband packages. Music industry executives and Nicholas Lansman, secretary general of the Internet Service Providers Association of Britain, said they were confident that they could soon reach a licensing agreement to make unlimited music services available via Internet providers. Cellphone manufacturers, meanwhile, are eager to add music services as the battle of the smartphones heats up among companies like Nokia, Apple and BlackBerry.
