Warner Music bets on mobile downloads

Downloads to mobile phones will reignite the music market

The chief executive of Warner Music has predicted that downloads to mobile phones will reignite the music market.

"The stage is set for the revitalisation of our industry," Edgar Bronfman told delegates during a keynote presentation at the CTIA Wireless IT and Entertainment tradeshow in San Francisco.

Carriers have already launched mobile music download services, and the US will see the launch of such a service over a 3G network "within weeks", according to Bronfman.

Mobile phones capable of playing digital music are beginning to emerge, most notably the Motorola Rokr and Nokia 3250.

Warner Music has a portfolio of about one million songs and has artists under contract including Madonna and Green Day.

The label is ready to make its entire portfolio available in digital form, and has made the production of non-traditional content, including ring-tones, ring-back-tones and wallpapers, part of the album creation process.

Ring-tones were previously created by third parties. A ring-back-tone allows a caller to send a specific ring-tone to the phone they are calling.

All this leads to what Bronfman calls the "decoupling of the album", meaning that record labels no longer do business by just selling music albums. Instead they now have a plethora of products including single-song downloads, ring-tones and albums.
"We can experiment with pricing models, and keep coming up with compelling experiences designed uniquely for the mobile life," he explained.

Taking a jab at Apple and Microsoft, Bronfman said that consumers should be able to play their music on any device, and that he favoured an open digital rights technology such as Sun Microsystem's Dream to protect content. 

Apple limits consumers to playing their music on iPods, PCs and the Motorola Rokr music phone. Companies that want to play music that uses Windows Media's DRM have to pay a license fee to Microsoft.

While Bronfman acknowledged that the ability to buy single songs has changed the way Warner Music does business, he disagreed with reports that this trend would hurt business.

While a traditional music store selling CDs can carry only a limited number of albums, a download service has an endless amount of shelf space, leading to more cross-sales, Bronfman argued.

"The unbundling of the album will drive consumption, not impede it," he said.