Cable giant Virgin Media UK has finally, after two years of effort, announced the official launch of its new Spotify based multi-platform music streaming service. The apparently "pioneering partnership" and "groundbreaking agreement" will allow Spotify's existing catalogue of 13 million music tracks to be made available to Virgin's broadband ISP customers through their phones, online or via Virgin's Set-Top-Boxes.

The service, which is "due to launch in the coming months", will be made available to customers through a mix of special offers, such as a bundled solution for customers with Virgin Mobiles.



Virgin Media hopes that its new solution will given its broadband ISP customers "a safe, legal way for the whole family" to enjoy music without resorting to "illegal" internet copyright infringement. However there's no escaping the fact that Virgin's service has the appearance, at least until we get to see more details, of being a re-packaged version of what Spotify already offers.

Virgin states that its service will include both Spotify Unlimited, which gives customers unlimited access to Spotify’s full library of music, ad-free, on their computers, and Spotify Premium, which adds the ability to enjoy the complete Spotify library on the move through mobile devices.

The operator claims that its solution, as well as the special bundle promotions hinted at earlier, also include "exclusive features and content". On top of that subscribers will find themselves eligible for special promotions. Sadly we're not told what these will be.

Many of us already use Spotify, both on our computers and via our mobile phones. Apparently existing Spotify users that are currently, or become, Virgin Media broadband customers will be able to keep their existing accounts and still take advantage of the bundled offers.

In fairness Virgin Media has gone through hell in order to achieve all this, although we won't really be able to judge its merits until after the full details have been released. As we keep saying, Virgin needs to go beyond what Spotify already offers as otherwise consumers will see little reason to bother.

It's certainly a far cry from the "Unlimited", DRM-free and P2P (File Sharing) based music download and streaming service that Virgin Media had originally envisaged back in 2009. Consumers wanted that, Rights Holders didn't.. the Rights Holders won.