Dell to sell DRM-free music with new PCs

Dell US customers can now purchase DRM-free music when purchasing a PC. The music comes from the catalog of Universal Music Group, which has reached an agreement with Dell.

Dell Customers to get the possibility to order a DRM-free music bundle when purchasing a new PC, so that, depending on the chosen bundle, fifty or a hundred songs are placed on their PC. The smallest bundle will cost $25 and the larger version will cost $50. The songs cannot be selected by the user, but have been collected by Dell and UMG.

For now, the DRM-free music bundles are only available on Inspiron 1525, Studio 15, and XPS 1535 laptops, and on Inspiron 530, 530s, Studio Desktop, and XPS 420 desktops. The service is not available for the XPS One and the Dell Mini 9 netbook. Dell’s music bundles are only available in the US.

It is the first time that a PC manufacturer and a major music publisher have collaborated in this way to attract customers, writes The Boston Globe. Whether the deal will be seen as a success by consumers remains to be seen; for UMG, the initiative in any case represents a new source of income that can help compensate for the ever-decreasing CD revenues.

Dell, through chief marketing officer Mark Jarvis indicated that the demand for PCs worldwide will decline as a result of the economic crisis, but that efforts are nevertheless being made to gain market share in growth areas such as India. The problems in the financial markets have already caused the demand for new PCs in the US, Europe and Asia to fall sharply, he says.