I’ve just spent the past couple of days with executives from Nokia, listening to them wax lyrical about their latest handset offering and associated music service. The handset was interesting, but it was the music element that really caught my attention.

Not content with its position as the world’s dominant provider of mobile handsets, the Finnish phone giant is determined to become a player in the associated areas of content and services. It’s figured out that these areas provide the prospect of stronger future revenues than hardware alone.

When its released later this year, Nokia’s music offer (dubbed ‘Comes With Music’) will be pretty compelling for many people. Buy a Nokia handset for around $400 and with it you’ll get access to a massive online music store containing tracks from the four major publishing companies as well as a growing list of indy labels. For a period of 12 months you can download as many of the tracks as you want to your PC or mobile phone.

That’s pretty good, but the deal gets even better. After your 12-month download period ends, you’ll be free to keep all your tracks forever – no questions asked. This is something no other company has ever offered.

There’s no doubt the Nokia offer will be massively popular and provide serious competition for Apple’s established iTunes online store. In fact, it may well change the recorded music business forever.

Faced with massive piracy problems, established music labels have been desperate to find a way to claw back their revenues. In an era when many internet users believe content should be free, this hasn’t been easy to do.

Now, at least they’ll be able to get some return on their massive music libraries. As they say in the classics, something is always better than nothing.

The launch of Nokia’s ‘Comes With Music’ initiative is a big day for the music industry. It will be very interesting to see how its effect plays out in the days to come.