14 DAY TRIAL // Wireless carrier Vodafone announced on Monday that its users would get access to DRM-free music from all four major labels through its music catalogue. According to the company, the new offer is available through a partnership with Warner Music and makes Vodafone the first carrier in the world to come with such an offer to its subscribers.
“Warner Music’s addition to our mobile DRM-free catalogue is really great news for our customers,” said Pieter Knook, Vodafone Internet Services director. “The response to the DRM-free offering in all the markets where it has launched has been incredibly enthusiastic. Our customers love music and they love the flexibility that DRM-free on mobile gives them.”
While the DRM-free downloads from Vodafone are already available in countries like UK, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece and Ireland, more markets will see this offer introduced for them in the near future. Vodafone's customers will continue to benefit from their current download service and will also have the opportunity to enjoy the songs they purchased on all of their personal music devices. Moreover, the music offer they can access has been enlarged with the new deal, the carrier added.
Both Vodafone and Warner Music are determined to come up with new offers for users, including an array of mobile music products like value-added album bundles that will come with additional multimedia content. The new deal with Warner Music adds to the already announced agreements with Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music that enabled Vodafone to deliver DRM-free music to its users.
“We’re pleased to be expanding our partnership with Vodafone, who share our vision of how to help foster the growth of mobile music and create further opportunities for connecting fans with artists by offering premium album content anytime, anywhere.” said Eric Daugan, SVP, Digital Business, Warner Music Europe. Vodafone operating companies in Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Spain and UK will make the Warner catalogue available to users, and the same will happen in the company's partner markets in Europe, including Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Slovenia and Switzerland.