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Real Launches Music Download Service

Posted by michael on from the music-wants-to-be-expensive dept.

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."

6 of 497 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The Real link....get it? by CoolCat · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Read somewhere that they are using wma file format only (norwegian) ..

  2. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  3. IT's Real!!! by TedTschopp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    How many of you trust or want Real to be selling you music.

    This is from the company hides their free player, tricks you into purchasing an upgrade, and has an install process which hijacks everything on your browser.

    Even if this was a good bargin I would reject if becuase it is from Real.

    Ted Tschopp

    --
    Fantasy remains a human right; we make in our measure and in our derivative mode... -- JRR Tolkien
  4. SOS (Same Old Shit) by asv108 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    This model has been used before and failed miserably. Not many people want to listen to streaming music on their computer. While CD burning was a much needed feature a few years ago, today people want to be able to use paid downloads with their portable and home MP3 devices. Apple's iTunes service is great if you only have Macs, use an ipod as your portable, and don't have a home MP3 player like the slimp3, tivo series 2, or an audiotron. Burning a CD from a lossy format and then re-ripping in to MP3 is not going to work, especially when the CDDB data won't register. I doubt people are interested in manually entering ID3 tags.

    For a music service to be great it needs to have some or all of the following characteristics.

    • A HUGE catalog, similar to what is available for sale on amazon or cdnow.
    • Standard formats that will work in existing players and devices: MP3, possibly others SHN,OGG,FLAC, AAC
    • No DRM or DRM that doesn't treat the user like a criminal. Apple's DRM scheme is liberal but tying DRM to specific devices and platforms will not work with the other 97% of potential users. Any service needs to work with existing players so you might as well ditch DRM all together. Sharing a file downloaded from a service is not going increase "piracy" when there are already multiple methods to rip any music.
    • Music encoded at different quality levels where users pay a premium for higher bitrate and/or lossless files.
    • A multi platform www interface, there could be a tightly integrated client for windows, but there is no reason an interface can't work on all platforms.
    • A sense of community: reviews, message boards, chat, etc. Apple's music service needs this..
  5. Two points to keep in mind by inkswamp · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This has probably already been pointed out, but I see everyone comparing Real's service with iTunes on a per-song basis. Despite the fact that Real doesn't even cleanly defeat iTunes on that basis (you have to download lots of songs for that to work out) I haven't yet seen anyone bring up the fact that iTunes music is cheaper per album. I've seen many album containing 16+ songs in iTunes for $9.99. That's significantly cheaper than Real's .79 per song + monthly subscription fee.

    The second point I want to make is that RealPlayer sucks butt on the Mac platform so Real stands to make zero inroads into the Mac market. I don't know what Real is like on Windows or elsewhere, but the Mac software is mediocrity in action. I wouldn't use Real's service at half that price unless they improved the lousy piece of dung that they pass off as their player. (Let's see, I close the main window and the application's menu bar disappears so I have to force-quit the damn thing. That's the hallmark of quality software.)

    --
    --Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
  6. You also have to debug the application too! by mrklin · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Some gems from its term and conditions:

    "6. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
    You shall promptly notify Listen in writing upon your discovery of any unauthorized use or infringement of the Subscription Services (or their contents) or any patent, copyright, trade secret, trademarks or other intellectual property rights of Listen or its licensors."

    Great, we are paying to be Real's beta testers.

    "5 (d) Stolen Account Information Your Responsibility
    You are solely and entirely responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your password, and for any and all activities that occur under your account."

    So if somebody hacked its site and downloaded user info en masse I am responsible as well?