BlackBerry users will soon have a new DRM-free mobile music service and an on-line music store, thanks to Puretracks, a popular Canadian digital music provider, and Magnet Mobile Media. The two companies developed Puretracks Mobile Edition music store for BlackBerry, a service that will bring BlackBerry owners the music of countless artists from Sony BMG, EMI, Universal and Warner, as well as from various independent record labels across the globe.

For those asking themselves what DRM-free means, it means "without digital rights management". DRM-free songs are usually purchased and downloaded via the Web. To exemplify, Apple's iTunes Store uses DRM-free music.

Puretracks Mobile Edition is created to be compatible with BlackBerry Curve, BlackBerry Pearl and BlackBerry 8800 series handsets. Especially designed for smartphones, the new Puretracks Mobile Edition is an advanced digital music service that uses compressed DRM-free, high-quality AAC and AAC+ formats. These formats make songs have half the size of MP3 tracks, hence users can download more music in a faster time.

Speaking about the new service, Andrea Ziegler, Chief Operating Officer of Puretracks declared: "When it comes to the wireless world, BlackBerry is at the forefront and we are excited to offer our service on a cutting-edge solution that seamlessly integrates digital music into the wireless space. The Puretracks Mobile music service we have developed for the BlackBerry platform is an innovative mobile music store for North America that employs DRM-free, 64 kb AAC/AAC+ files. For wireless users, this equates to inexpensive airtime costs, smaller storage requirements, and higher music quality."

The full version of Puretracks Mobile Edition music store for BlackBerry will make its debut in the US on April the 1st 2008, during CTIA Wireless. In the future, Puretracks Mobile Edition will also work with Wi-Fi capable devices, and it will be launched in Canada and other markets too. No details yet about how much users have to pay for the service.