Music downloads

Nokia and Apple have been talking about creating a new ipod-mobile phone hybrid project to enable 'download anywhere' music services maybe they should look to the East to see what has been quietly taking Japan by storm.

The product is called 'Chuku Uta' which is a Sony format that allows full songs to be downloaded and played on mobile phones.

With maximum speeds of 2.5Mbps being reached over the 3G network and with fixed packet rates keeping the costs down the service is starting to take off - KDDI announced their 10 millionth download on June 15th.

The company launched the new service on the 19th December 2004 and currently have 37,000 songs on offer. The format allows for full digital rights management so that files cannot be copied and shared providing strict royalties protection for the artists. These restrictions on sharing don't seem to have put the public off so far and the benefits of the service is that it allows them to get access to music quickly and cheaply.

The real question is, does anybody really want to pay to listen to J-Pop?