European mobile content provider Jamba is partnering with music label EMI to offer Digital Rights Management-free music for mobile devices and PCs.

More than 1.5 million DRM free songs will be available on all Jamba/Jamster portals in Europe Middle East and Asia through mobile handsets and PCs.

"This is the first step on our journey towards offering our customers a DRM free catalogue of music and we are happy to enter this new level of our partnership with EMI," said Niels Genzmer, spokesperson at Jamba, Beverly Hills, CA. "Our goal is to allow consumers to purchase and use their music anywhere at any time and on any device."

The tracks will be sent to users through a dual delivery system -- an MP3 version will be sent to PCs for top-sound quality and compressed AAC+ files are sent to mobile devices. The AAC+ files work well for mobile because they download quickly and are a small file size.

"The fact that downloaded content is restricted to certain players and usage through DRM is obviously quite a barrier in terms of consumer acceptance and sales," Mr. Genzmer said. "We believe that DRM free music is the future and will become the standard as it is much more consumer friendly."

Jamba claims to reach 1 billion consumers around the world in 35 countries and 25 languages across five continents. The mobile entertainment provider supports more than 2,800 handsets and offers billing connectivity to more than 125 operators worldwide.

The company offers mobile products available directly through mobile phones including branded popular content from more than 800 content providers such as Fox, as well as music, mobile games and other original content.

"The new development [DRM-free music] removes that barrier entirely so that consumers are no longer forced to use a certain device or music solution," he said. "They now can listen to their music whereever and whenever they want on many devices."

On a separate note, mobile music service Groove Mobile announced a worldwide licensing deal with Indie Mobile that will extend Groove Mobile's independent music library to cover mobile content rights including full music tracks, videos and realtones from a catalogue of 70,000 songs.

Groove Mobile powers 3UK, a UK mobile music service and the Sprint Music Store.