After announcing their partnership, SDC and Amobee Media Systems have developed a music DRM service through which enabled handsets will receive ads. Amobee Media Systems is one of a handful of companies to promote ad-funded mobile content. According to the company, the use of adverts to fund mobile services will significantly increase the popularity of various mobile content as well as generate revenue for mobile operators.

In the case of the Music DRM service, new advertising revenues should also be enabled for record labels that are active in the mobile space.

"Over the last several years the music industry has engaged with the mobile industry to create a new music experience. However, the user bears the full weight of payment - a situation that will ultimately stifles growth. Ad-funding the mobile music business has the potential to create new revenue streams for operators and record labels while delivering an innovative, targeted and measurable advertising channel for brands", said Michael Bornhaeusser, CEO of SDC.

Up until now Amobee provided game developers with a small SDK named HAPI (Handset Application Programming Interface) for ad-funding mobile games.

The HAPI file has been integrated into SDC's file system which means that the DRM music players can now receive ads from Amobee's purpose built mobile ad-server. The results following the live trials of Amobee's Mobile Media System proved that operators could even quadruple mobile service revenues with ad-funding.

As for the subscribers, they have become much more acceptant of ad-funded mobile content. The two companies will be demonstrating the new music DRM service at MIDEM in Cannes this week.