Verizon Wireless announced Monday it is introducing Rhapsody's subscription music service, allowing its customers to download as much music as they want to their phones for 15 U.S. dollars per month.
The service will work with seven current handsets and three to be launched soon, including the third version of the popular music-oriented LG Chocolate.
The wireless arm of AT&T Inc. has a similar subscription arrangement with Napster Inc.
In a related announcement, Rhapsody said it is getting rid of copy protection on all tracks bought from its online music store. Beginning Monday, customers can buy music in the MP3 format, which will play on practically any music gadget, including iPods.
Rhapsody is following in the tracks of Napster, Apple Inc.'s iTunes and Amazon.com Inc., all of which have introduced MP3 downloads and moved away from digital rights management, or DRM, which prevents copying and piracy, but also makes it difficult to legally move music between devices.
Rhapsody is a joint venture of RealNetworks Inc. and Viacom Inc. through its MTV subsidiary.
Apart from its music sales and subscription service, Rhapsody provides 30-second music samples that can be played on several websites, through "music discovery service" iLike Inc. Those clips will now be expanded to full tracks, and surfers can listen to up to 25 of them per month without a Rhapsody subscription.
Source:Xinhua/Agencies
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