Mobile-phone giant Nokia recently announced it will include support for Microsoft PlayReady technology into the Nokia S60 and Series 40 mobile device platforms, extending its existing copy protection offerings to content providers, which include Windows Media DRM 10 and OMA DRM.
Music has been one of the main drivers for the mobile entertainment business, but the Finnish mobile manufacturer expects the deal to boost the entertainment offerings on cell phones to include other protected pieces of content like music, games or videos.
Microsoft PlayReady is fully backward-compatible with Windows Media DRM 10 and supports a range of business models that can be applied to almost any type of digital content, including music, video, games, ringtones, images and more. A wide range of audio and video formats including WMA, WMV, AAC, AAC+, AMR and H.264 are supported.
The agreement further fuels speculation that Nokia is about to jump onto the music downloads bandwagon with the launch of an online music and mobile content store, following the company's acquisition of U.S. digital music distributor Loudeye Corp.