Nokia is thinking about stripping out the DRM functions in Comes With Music. At least, this is what we can infer from an interview with Adam Mirabella, Director of Global Digital Music Retail for Nokia with Channel News Asia.

Then again, is this merely a ‘seeing which way the wind blows’ statement, or is it a little more far reaching and a statement about how the whole download industry is changing?

Nokia’s Comes With Music has been rolling out around the globe for close to two years now and recently reached Singapore and the Far East. This is a previously untapped market, so potential major growth is enormous. To this end, Nokia has been heavily promoting its music service and its benefits to the Nokia user.

So, it didn’t come as a surprise when Adam Mirabella, Director of Global Digital Music Retail for Nokia popped up on Channel News Asia talking about the download service. However, one of the points he made did seem rather bold. Mirabella said, 'We have dialogues going with all of our partners and DRM-free is also on the roadmap for the future integration of 'Comes With Music'.'

This has got a lot of sites in a spin but to our mind, this looks more like a statement of interest rather than one of intent... yet. After all, Comes With Music still hasn’t hit America, where it would face stiff competition from the record industry to change the way it works. Then again, it merely puts Nokia at the forefront of that debate, ‘should all music downloads be DRM-free?’

Comes With Music is slowly changing the way most people view music downloads. It was the first store to allow users to keep their downloads even if they don’t renew their yearly contract. So, would stripping DRM from the music really change the way we use the service?

So, the question is - as Comes With Music already offers an ‘all you can eat’ approach to music downloads, would scrapping the DRM make you buy into the service more or less? let us know what you think in the Comments section below.