More Mobile File Sharing: This Time From Nokia

from the it's-happening... dept

For quite some time, we've been wondering why the music industry was so excited about the money they were making from ringtones, since they all seemed to ignore the lessons they learned the past few years online: by overpricing ringtones and making them difficult to get, they were going to be taken by surprise when the "Napster for mobile phones" showed up. It appears that it's getting closer -- but the most interesting part is that the developments seem to be coming from large companies rather than a kid in a dorm room. Last week we wrote about SK Telecom's new file sharing application, and today's New Scientist reports that Nokia Research is working on their own file sharing application. They admit that it was more difficult than they expected due to the unreliable nature of mobile phone networks, but that it is possible. As the article notes, the issue (once again) isn't really technical, but how the recording industry will respond (easy to predict that one: badly). Of course, what the recording industry still doesn't seem to understand is that these applications don't go away, no matter how much they complain (and sue). The next trick, though, will be seeing how developers take the idea of P2P one step further once they realize that by adding P2P in a mobile world, it lets users do more than just swap songs.