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Real Cuts Prices for DRM-Restricted Music

Posted by michael on from the gnutella-still-free-for-all dept.

Flint Dragon writes "A story on MSNBC details RealNetworks' next step in converting iPod users from iTunes to their own online music store. Not only can you play music downloaded from their site on your iPod now, you can, for a limited time, purchase music for 50% cheaper (.49/song, 4.99/album)! This is the price that I'm willing to pay for. Too bad it won't last..."

4 of 633 comments (clear)

  1. Step 3 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hopefully step three is supporting Macs. For me, that's the ???? before step 4: Profit!!

  2. Apple & Real by daviddennis · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Could someone tell me why Apple is so upset about Real being able to its music work in the iPod? Apple has said their Music Store is not meant as a profit center, so isn't it better for them (in the sense of selling more iPods) that the store's compatible with Real?

    Of course this is of little interest to me since Real's not supporting Macs and I'm certainly not going to switch to Windows on their behalf.

    I don't think Real stockholders are going to think much of the bleeding, and when prices go back to $ 0.99 each I doubt that most people will stay with Real, given their software's general level of obnoxiousness and hard-sell promotion. Apple, for all its faults, has a very classy and nicely done music store I think most people will prefer by a huge margin.

    D

  3. Audio Quality by Philosinfinity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    While better audio codecs have been advanced (MP3, ogg, FLAC...) it seems that the real audio format has maintained its position at the end of the pack. While I am not such an audiophile that I feel like researching expert information on audio quality, it seems that I notice a great difference when listening to an .ra file as opposed to an MP3. Getting half the quality for half the price seems like a wash to me. That is, unless they are either distributing music in another format or have advanced their own encoding process. However, even an advance in the Real Audio format seems negligible. While it is nice that the files are currently compatable with the iPod, it still seems Real is taking the "too propritary" road. Now before I get tossed into the flamebait category, I do understand that iTunes, MusicMatch, and the rest of the competition is fairly proprietary in their own right. But iTunes, and to a degree MusicMatch, are quite a bit less intrusive applications than RealPlayer. Further, does anyone remember the user privacy sagas that Real has been through? Does anyone really trust Real to safeguard your information? I don't know about the rest of you, but Real lost my trust a long time ago. They could give out $0.01 songs and $0.10 albums, and that alone would scare me away.

  4. Questions.. by TheCeltic · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ok, I'm sure this is all covered somewhere at the two sites but...

    1. Can we copy the file we bought to different devices (i.e. PC/ipod/mp3 player)?
    2. Will it allow us to modify the format to/from mp3/wma/ogg/etc?
    3. What is the quality compared with "normal" downloads (from gnutella/limewire/etc)?
    4. Can we "re-download" a song if our copy get destroyed/lost/mangled?
    5. What other advantages/dis-advantages are there?

    --
    =-=-=-=-=-=-=-= - The Celtic - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=