Slashdot Mirror
Real Launches Music Download Service
fupeg writes "Spurred on by Apple's success, as well as their own purchase of listen.com, Real Networks announced their own online music service, dubbed RealOne Rhapsody. Here is the press release. They're offering songs at $0.79 per song, but with a $9.99/month subscription. The first two months are free. The press release says that 2/3 of their 300,000 song catalog is available for CD burning, while everything is available for 'on-demand' listening."
I'd like to remind everyone, before making flash judgements:
This is a good thing. Whether or not RealNetworks can pull it off (and they might, being the first comparable option in the Windows market), competition will help. Perhaps this will lower Apple's per-song fee.
Bravo for taking a risk.
Sure, it's .20 cheaper than the Apple Music Store per song... However, due to that monthly fee, the only way it actually balances out is if you download more than 50 songs a month ($10/50=$.20 - download less than that and each song is correspondingly more expensive than the $.99 charge).
Plus, this doesn't include the Apple $9.95 for a full album pricing option.
-T
I can't imagine most people paying for something that allows only on-demand listening. There are far too many limitations to on-demand listening:
Must be on a Windows PC attached to a high-speed internet line in the United States. So that cuts out listening to your music on any sort of musical "appliance" like a radio or cd player... You can't listen in your car, or anywhere else.
Its much like watching re-runs of Friends on pay-per-view. Who would want that?
I've been buying CD's now since 1987 or so. I still like some of the CD's I bought back then. I cannot fathom having paid $10/month since 1987 just so I could still have it in my collection.
I want to buy my music and call it mine to play whereever and whenever I darn well please thank you. Can you imagine forgetting a month and -poof- CD collection gone! I'm probably missing something here since I can't imagine this appeals to anybody.
This is the same industry that pushed through mandated SCMS (serial copy management) for all DAT music players. The result was that the consumer format failed even though it would have been an adequate replacement for cassette tape and avoided a lot of the trauma associated with burnable CD-Rs. They tried hard to kill that technology but failed as well. Minidiscs were a similar situation though Sony managed to kill that all by itself.
The recording industry's business plan has been floundering for years - expecting logic from them, beyond the logic that they need to make money, is silly.
Incidentally, those mix tapes were illegal, unfortunately, once they left your hands and entered someone else's. The difference was no one cared back then.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
This is a way too complicated of a pricing plan for a basic home user.
There are simply way to many rules with this plan as stated. I pay a monthly fee, so I should be able to use any song right? No, I have to pay for each song [after the trial]. So why am I paying a monthly fee? Then I get the song, and realize I can use it but for my computer?
You try selling that to the guy on the street.
That's why the Apple plan works. $.99 a song. We'll give you a discount if you buy a full album (for most CDs). No monthly fee. Burn, iPod, play your songs you got. There are some restrictions, but transparent to the average user. That's easier to sell to the guy on the street.
AnamanFan - Trying to find the Truth, one post at a time.
10 tracks @ RealR - $7.90 + $9.95 = $17.85
10 tracks @ Apple - $9.90 + $0.00 = $09.90
25 tracks @ RealR - $19.75 + $9.95 = $29.70
25 tracks @ Apple - $24.75 + $0.00 = $24.75
50 tracks @ RealR - $39.50 + $9.95 = $49.45
50 tracks @ Apple - $49.50 + $0.00 = $49.50
So I have to buy fifty tracks per month before Real Rhapsody is even remotely competive, not to mention the fact that something like one-third of the tracks aren't burnable at all.
I am so sick of comments like this. You can still tape songs off the radio, but do you want to know where the line between 'sharing with friends' and 'stealing' is? It's when your 'friend' (who you've never heard of) comes to your computer and downloads the song. It's where giving becomes taking. If you give them the song, as in you hand someone a great mixed cd or you email an mp3, that is sharing. If you post your 18Gigs on music on your server and let anyone download, that's stealing.
And for the people who are going to respond that it's not stealing because they're just 0s and 1s, or becuase it's just copyright, we've all heard it. As for me, I'm glad to see these services starting. They're coming late to the party, we all know that, but it's what I've been asking for...a legal way to browse new music without paying $14 bucks at Best Buy.
Things fall down...People look up... And when it rains, it pours.
If I like the music, generally I want the artist to produce more of it.
But if you don't have money, then I really don't see anything wrong with file sharing because you are not costing anyone anything.
Similarly, in college I copied programs just like everyone else but now I buy pretty much anything I use regularly because I can afford to and like to support development of good programs (I also donate money to the EFF and FSF for the same reason).
So my personal line is that if I can pay for it, I do, and if I can't, then it's OK to copy (because they wouldn't have money from me anyway). Of course the trick is deciding what you can afford and it's easy to rationalize that many things are too expensive - you just have to try and be honest with yourself about what you can afford.
I did have two or three songs from P2P services that I liked and kept in my music library - but after the Apple service started up I bought them to help support the artists (and the originals I had were 160k MP3's so it wasn't to get better quality). I know they don't really see much money but the artists do also get the intangible benefit of perceived popularity, which might help them in dealings with the label...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
You're not being glib. You're being an asshole.
First off, taping songs from the radio and giving them to friends is illegal, and always was; but no one really cared about music sharing before perfect digital copies became easily available.
I'm not going to try to defend the recording industry's fiscal practices or their despicable assault on music fans' real rights - but frankly it's wide-eyed disregard for the just-as-real rights of music publishers that is fucking it up for the rest of us.
How much cause would Sen. Hollings have if content companies weren't scared shitless by millions of pirates like yourself? Would we have the speech-destroying DMCA without music/movie piracy? I submit, possibly not. There's no point in debating the details of who gets what under copyright law if you're willing to flout that law for personal gain.
But don't be surprised when the entertainment industries cajole the government into flouting some rights that you might think are important.
1) KaZaa, MX, &tc are full of hassles, including:
These are a pain in the ass that didn't used to exist to such a high degree in file "sharing" and they've spoiled the experience for a lot of people. Hunting for some of the really good obscure shit I like to listen to has become such a hassle that I far prefer Apple's music service.
2) The whole idea behind P2p was it was supposed to turn you on to new artists and broaden your horizons. In my experience, it's the web (forums, internet radio, weblogs, etc) that do a better job of that...so it makes sense that music downloading should be tied to it. Which message would you prefer:
You gotta check out this MC kris track, it's called booba fet or something, look for it on kazaa.
or
You gotta check out this mc Kris track, click here.
A pay-for-play music service allows that kind of ease of linking with music that is cheap, easy to find, always available, ships for free, has no clicks of pops, bears full id3 tags and album art, whatever. It's finally a new way to use music, and not just an extension of a CD culture.
And yeah, it's cool that the artists I like will get some cash, too. But then again, most of them have been on emusic for years...
Hey freaks: now you're ju