Nokia Music becomes OVI Music, DRM free(Almost) !!! in India

Technorati Tags: Mobiles,Music

Nokia India quietly(may be they are still testing, making sure things work) rebranded Nokia Music to OVI Music. Cj noted this first in early morning and posted on Twitter. Seems like they like to do things quietly or People in blogosphere always find anything before Nokia can formally announce/release. I had posted review of Nokia Music earlier in Diwali when they were offering 200 tracks free.
I decided to try and headed over to OVI Music India site and found that rebranded, revamped interface. Following is screenshot.

I tried this on Chrome in Ubuntu 9.04 on my laptop and I was able to log-in with my Nokia Music account.Earlier only IE+Windows was supported with Music store, I tested this on Firefox and it works there too. So IE, Firefox, Chrome all work on Windows and Ubuntu(Linux). It seems that they have made it available to multi-browsers, multi-OS.

Also I could download track straight from browser and it saved file as *.mp3, But main thing was that I was able to play it in Ubuntu via Rhythmbox. This is great as I was not able to do it earlier because it was DRM protected. This means now OVI Music downloads are DRM free except tracks downloaded with OVI Music Unlimited. I was able to copy and paste track from Ubuntu to My Nokia N82 via data cable and I was able to play the song. No need of license or anything. Earlier you needed Windows Media player as pre-requisite for all Nokia Music DRM related stuff. See following screenshot which is taken from track properties, in OVI player. Note that DRM Protected is No. That’s really great. It means you are free to move your music anywhere you want, play it on any device and keep it forever. No limits !!!

I found interface to be far improved than earlier and faster in operation. It’s more in lines with OVI design and icons.You can hide/show different windows, browse via charts, genre as it was earlier but now User Interface is much better to navigate.

One major thing to note here is there also OVI Music Unlimited which looks like re-branding of Nokia CWM-Comes With Music Service. In India , we still do not have any devices launched as CWM , so I guess they may be planning to launch 5235, X6 soon here.Right now if you click activate subscription , you are asked to put in PIN. If you try links like “Where you can get a OVI Music Unlimited Mobile”, you be redirected to Nokia Malaysia-they also got OVI Music few days back. Any Music with OVI Music Unlimited service can be downloaded and played with registered Mobile and PC. It also can not be burnt CD or copied. DRM is still here !!!

Problem I encountered was with login, I guess they are still in process of migrating/merging older Nokia Music and OVI accounts together. I was able to login with my Nokia Music account and it showed me remaining tracks and my download history. But when I login with my OVI account , I can not see any tracks, also when you login with your OVI account you will required to confirm and accept terms, email id, phone number. so in my case, I have 2 different accounts. But for some users, like Arjun it seems to be going great as he has his older Nokia Music account and OVI account merged successfully. I guess if you have same username in both services , you will be merged but this was not case with me :)

Here is login with my OVI account showing no tracks.

Here is my login with older Nokia Music account, showing 29 tracks and also Download history.

 

I am sure there will be formal launch announcement soon Nokia has announced this via their Nokia Music India twitter account they will resolve issues with account merging soon.It’s good to see that Nokia is taking on such initiatives and improving, DRM free is good move.Have you ever used Nokia Music(OVI Music now)? So what you think? Let me know via your comments.