14 DAY TRIAL // Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia is rumored to have decided to shut down the popular Ovi Music Unlimited service (previously known as Comes With Music) that it offered with a series of select devices. Apparently, while the music store might not be closed, the service through which Nokia phone owners were granted access to the portal will be discontinued.
According to a recent article on esphoneblog, Nokia plans on shutting down the 1-year license service in Finland, and might do the same in other markets around the world as well.
The news site published a document which seems meant to detail the manner in which Nokia would act on the matter.
The said document shows that, starting with January 1st, 2011, no new device with the service bundled would be shipped on the market.
Moreover, starting with January 10th, 2011, no user would be able to renew the 1-year license the Ovi Music Unlimited service required.
The handsets (new mobile phones) bought with Ovi Music Unlimited won't be affected by this move, as users would still have the possibility to activate them for the 1-year free music download service.
Users who have already purchased a license for accessing the service from their Nokia phones won't be affected either, though they will not be able to renew the subscription when it expires.
As stated above, the Ovi Music store is expected to remain accessible, though no info on the manner in which users would gain access to it emerged for the time being.
The Ovi Music Unlimited / Comes With Music service was not very popular among end-users, at least not at the level Nokia would have wanted it to be, some of the previous reports on it suggested. Some argued at the time that DRM-free content would have been great for the service.
No specific details on Nokia's plans for the Ovi Music store emerged for the time being, but provided that the rumor pans out, it should not be too long before the company makes a formal announcement on the matter.