Sony BMG plans to join the crowded pool of digital music services by launching its own music subscription service... sometime. Sony BMG CEO Rolf Schmidt-Holtz said that the service would allow customers unlimited access to Sony BMG's entire library for a fee of €6 to €8 per month (roughly US$9-$12) and that the company was working with other labels and gadget makers in order to make it more appealing.

Schmidt-Holtz told German language newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung that he believes the venture will pay off for Sony BMG, assuming enough customers are interested. He also acknowledged that the service would become more attractive if more big names joined in the initiative, and to make that happen, Sony BMG was in talks with other unnamed labels. Schmidt-Holtz also indicated that the company was trying to work out deals with handset and gadget makers, like the one Nokia has with Universal.

The service would definitely be a subscription service, Schmidt-Holtz said, complete with music that expires if you don't renew. Curiously, he added that service would ideally work on all digital music players, including Apple's iPod. But expiring music requires DRM, and there is yet to be a universal DRM scheme that works on both Apple-made devices and everything else. He did indicate, however, that there might be a way to purchase individual tracks (a la Napster) in order to build a digital music collection that wouldn't disappear later.

As for a timeline, well, there isn't one. Schmidt-Holtz didn't talk about when he expects the service to launch or any other specific details, indicating that the idea is (at best) still in its early stages. He did address a question about whether Apple wields too much power in the digital music world, saying that "the market share is huge" and that there's room for more than one party to sell music.

This, of course, is true. But from what Schmidt-Holtz has revealed so far, it doesn't appear as if there's anything new or innovative about Sony BMG's planned subscription service. And unless the label can get other major labels on board, the service will seem odd and incomplete with only a select group of major artists—most average listeners don't keep track of which label their favorite singers and bands belong to. It's clear that Sony BMG has a lot of planning to do before launching its online music initiative. In an already-crowded space, the label will have to find some way to stand out and get noticed—something the label is surely aware of already, after parent company Sony shuttered the struggling Sony Connect service under a year ago.