UBC’s service will be offered as a one month trial by Chrysalis radio station Heart, with tracks priced at GBP1.25 each through a pre-paid system. Major labels Sony BMG, EMI, Universal and Warner are backing the service.
The Register reports that the music files will be encrypted alongside Heart’s audio stream, cached for a short time in the mobile device, and then bought as well as transferred to the user’s web-accessed music library. This allows the track to be downloaded to a PC and copied to DRM-supporting portable music players.
