Mixed blessings of mobile music: we are on the cusp of a music-on-mobiles boom, but how will this affect catalogue?(EDITORIAL)

The technological and philosophical leap from one January to the next was clearly apparent at last week's Midem conference.

A year ago, the music business was looking forward to a year when mobile music services would begin to hit the market.

This year, the debate was about how quickly mobile music will explode into mainstream--and how music can be packaged in the online world.

There is no doubting the massive potential for delivery of music to mobiles. Over the coming year, the next true rival to the iPod will begin to emerge-in the form of the telephone handset. Just as it is hard to find a phone without a free camera these days, it will not be long before music playing capability comes as standard.

Mobile network operators and rights owners will hope that this will drive sales of over-the-air downloads--what everyone in the business must remember, however, is that this is by no means guaranteed.

As critics of the iPod revolution are quick to emphasise, 42m iPods worldwide is certainly impressive--until you consider that 850m music downloads via iTunes over the past two years adds up to ...