Nokia adds Sony BMG catalog to Comes With Music

Nokia announced that Sony BMG Music Entertainment has officially joined the handset giant's Comes With Music initiative. Comes With Music enables consumers to purchase a year of unlimited music downloads via mobile handsets bundled with Nokia's Ovi web services platform--Nokia announced a partnership with Universal Music Group International upon unveiling the service [1] late last year, and in recent weeks the company has also confirmed negotiations [2] with Warner Music Group, adding it is confident deals will be in place with all four major labels prior to Comes With Music's late 2008 launch.

"This initiative represents a critical new way of gaining access to music, through which fans will be able to explore Sony BMG's vast catalog of recordings for an entire year," said the label's president of global digital business and U.S. sales Thomas Hesse in a prepared statement. "We think this business model will encourage users to sample a wide range of material, expand their musical tastes and listen to more music than ever before. In the process, we think it will provide new opportunities to artists from every genre of music, and increase demand for music overall."

For more on the Nokia/Sony BMG deal:
- read this release [3]