Musiwave, an Openwave company and a leading provider of mobile music entertainment services to operators and media companies worldwide, has announced it has been selected by leading French operator SFR to power one of the industry's first subscription-based music download services for full length tracks.

Musiwave has partnered with Secure Digital Container AG (SDC) to deliver a complete Digital Rights Management (DRM) solution to SFR, an affiliate of Vivendi Universal and Vodafone. This advanced solution allows operators to enter the market for full length music subscription services that has traditionally been the domain of web portals and fixed line service providers.

The solution's simple user interface allows consumers to download as many tracks as they want when subscribed to the service. Designed with flexibility in mind, the service allows users to delete and recharge their mobiles with their favorite tracks from the operator’s portal whenever they want, regardless of location. The SFR service currently offers access to 80,000 songs from the UNIVERSAL Music catalogue.

A March 2005 survey conducted by analyst group Jupiter Research identifies the flat rate rent-to-own model as one of the top three digital multimedia music service features requested by consumers.
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