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Would you pay for free downloads if UBC Media made it easy on your mobile?

With dismal timing, an enterprising radio producer has come up with a way of downloading - and paying for - music from digital radio. The timing looks awful, because it's just a week since the unveiling of Digital Radio Mondial, or DRM - which allows digital recording direct off air - free. The news appears likely to restart the old dispute over the legality of recording off air.

The announcement by UBC Media follows "successful trials" in the Birmingham area of the UK, where customers could listen to radio programmes and keep - and pay for - songs they liked.

The technology is based on the new digital radio service, DRM (here, ironically, not standing for digital rights management) and UBC Media has announced that it will work over the new "Lobster" radio phone from HTC, being released by Virgin mobile.

But the DRM technology already allows simple "digital tape recording" of the music stream. The  Morphy Richards DRM radio [left] already shipping (in Germany) has a slot in the side where the user can install an SD format memory card. A standard one Gig card, costing around ten pounds sterling, would be able to download a half hour's worth of DAB broadcast, or four hours of DRM music, in the form of standard MP3 files.

Unless music "owners" find a way of inserting digital rights management data into the music stream, the only people who will use the DMD paid-for technology will be those who find the standard DRM recorder too complex.

UBC CEO Simon Cole was quoted in a Reuters article as considering that his impulse-purchase technology would meet the ease-of-use test. "Research has shown that the service is most popular with listeners listening to the radio at home and with people who had previously been put off by downloading music because they thought it was too complicated," he told Kate Holton

The technology was first unveiled by UBC last year. In August, the company announced the successful completion of consumer trials in Birmingham with Chrysalis-owned radio station Heart 100.7.

"The agreement of the record industry is crucial to successful commercial launch," said UBC in its press release this week. The company has agreed commercial terms with Universal Music Group, Warner Music and EMI on copyright payments for music recordings that will be sold in the UK by radio stations using DMD technology as well as reaching agreement with MCPS who represent the music publishers.

At publication time, no further information was available about compatibility with the market leader, iTunes. UBC pricing is appreciably higher than the iTunes ticket, with a download cost "expected to be in the region of £1.25 per track."

It looks as if some customers could pay a lot more. Downloading onto the Virgin Lobster phone will carry with it the option of using the phone to download over 3G networks if and when Virgin has access to those.

The "Lobster 700 TV" launched in October by Virgin Mobile is the first such device and UBC says it is "finalising commercial terms with Virgin for billing and customer service."

The software which will operate the service on the Lobster mobile was developed for UBC by TTP, and will be released in January 2007. UBC demonstrated the service on the Lobster phone at its analyst meeting at the London Stock Exchange earlier this week.