RIM launching BBM Music service: 50 songs for $5

RIM is attempting a return to hipness by offering a subscription music service through BlackBerry Messenger that offers 50 sharable songs for $5 per month. 

Sounds like a decent deal until you find out that the songs are only playable on BlackBerry devices and cannot be exported. Naturally, sharing is limited to other BBM music subscribers, All Things D reports. 

Once again, RIMs decision-making is baffling when you consider that there are subscriptions services available on the BlackBerry like Rdio and Rhapsody that offer unlimited music across several different devices for $10 per month.

There's also Spotify, which is undoubtedly the best music subscription service of the bunch, but is currently not available on BlackBerry devices.

Nonetheless, it makes sense for RIM to push BBM given the fact that it is the one bright spot in an otherwise bleak last few years for the company as a whole.

As CNET points out, "To better improve the performance of its BBM service, RIM opened it up to developers last month, allowing deeper integration with separate applications such as video games and social check-in programs like Foursquare."

RIM is currently in license negotiations with the big four record labels and there are plans to beta launch the BBM Music service in the U.S., Canada and the UK in early September.