Universal Music Group, which recently made a deal with Amazon to offer DRM-free music, has now come up with another business model to potentially boost revenue from music.  The group has been in discussions with Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group, proposing to launch an online music subscription service called Total Music that will initially be free with some digital players and phones. 

For example, a phone that features with the Total Music promotion may offer the user free access to a large catalogue of music for up to 6 to 12 months in an aim to get consumers use to the service and hopefully willing to take up a subscription.  Going by this InformationWeek report, Universal CEO Doug Morris is reported to be trying to find a way to provide its music along with music from Sony and possibly Warner on cellular phones and have the subscription cost incorporated into the consumer's cellular phone bill.  So for a little extra on the cellular phone bill per month, a consumer has access to a vast library of music while on the move.  However, it is unclear yet if consumers would also have to pay for data charges to download each song via the cellular network or if the music can only be downloaded via Wi-FI or through a PC connection like with most MP3 players. 
 
With the major success of Ringtones despite their high pricing, it will be interesting to see how well Universal’s Total Music service performs if its new business model takes off.