One small step for mobile music?

Verizon Wireless’ latest effort in the full-track download space is a step in the right direction for mobile music. But it’s a very small step.
In case you missed it, the carrier earlier this week launched a $15-per-month service that provides unlimited access to more than 5 million tunes. A collaborative effort from RealNetworks, MTV Networks and Verizon Wireless, Vcast Music with Rhapsody also offers $2 over-the-air downloads in addition to matching iTunes’ 99-cent price point for PC-only purchases.
The news was accompanied by the usual hype, of course. A Verizon Wireless executive described the offering as “an incredible cutting-edge service,” and the market research firm M:Metrics described it as “a boon to mobile music consumption.”
Um, not exactly.
Verizon Wireless and its partners deserve credit for overcoming a key stumbling block: the $2 downloads include a DRM-free copy delivered to PCs in addition to a protected tune for the handset, allowing users to transfer the MP3 to any device any number of times.
But the awkwardly named service isn’t just competing with Apple Inc.’s iTunes and Amazon.com’s online music offerings, it’s also competing with a host of torrent sites where countless users are downloading music without paying a dime. Two dollars is simply too high a price for the privilege of downloading tunes directly to a phone – even if those tunes come without the hassle of a DRM wrapper. And while some mobile users have grown accustomed to paying monthly fees for ringtones and games, digital music subscription services have failed to gain mass-market traction, as evidenced by the demise of Yahoo Music and MTV’s Urge.
Demand for music on the go has existed for decades, spawning everything from transistor radios to the Walkman to iPods, and the mobile phone certainly seems destined to become the next vehicle for portable music. But the digital music space is a land of razor-thin margins, and whether there’s room in the value chain for carriers is far from clear. If opportunity does exist for carriers, it will require much more creativity and innovation than just rolling out a monthly subscription service and removing restrictive DRM software.