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Real Cuts Prices for DRM-Restricted Music
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..."
To get me to use Real. They'd have to start paying me, and even then it would take some convincing.
Cause we all trust real enough to give them our money even though we don't trust them enough to install their crap.
Hopefully step three is supporting Macs. For me, that's the ???? before step 4: Profit!!
I thought that these companie barely even made a profit at $1 per song. A limited time low, loss-inducing cost might attract customers for a while but the low switching cost between services means that they won't stay when prices going up, especially if your sound quality is not as good.
Some how I don't think their conversion-to-iPod feature is going to last, at least not once the new revision of iPod software comes out.
But I'd refuse to take DRM music even if it were free. The Audio Home Recording Act gives me the right to make backups of my music, to make compilations of my music, and to share those compilations with as many friends as I'd like, as long as I don't charge anything.
ANY system that interferes with those rights is unacceptable to me.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Bait and switch? It's called a "sale". A bait and switch ios when they're sell you sometihng more expensive than the advertised item.
Mod point free since 2001
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
I find it exceedingly amusing, and telling, that RealNetworks, after years of pushing proprietary audio and video formats, is now fighting Apple's use of proprietary hardware. They have to market to iPod users because mp3 players using Real format music have been blown out of the water.
Its too bad their software was always ad-ridden garbage. They will have to do a lot more than a loss-leader sales ploy to get my trust back.
You mean Apple might sell more iPods? That's terrible news for Apple, because we all know they really make their money selling $0.99 songs.
so these people are *losing* quite a bit of money on this; or maybe the music industry is pitching in? I am sure they are not really happy w/ iTunes getting as big as it is.
MS conspiracy theorists will have a feast.
*somebody* has to be pitching in... isn't real a fairly small company?
-Facun.This is a great move by Real. I will definatly be a buyer since there are many albums that I have been on the fringe of buying but have now wanted to spend 12-15 bucks on, but would def be wiling to spend 5.
This move will help increase competition in the market and I think will be beneficial to the consumers in the long run. As much as I like Apple, I like good old competition more cause it means better products at lower prices! Gotta Love Capatalism!
My Web Site - www.ocean-liners.com
..then a new 'firmware' update comes out for the iPod and your new library quits working...
Until the dust settles I'd not buy anything from real in hopes of it working with my iPod. Not like they support my platform anyway (Mac)
As a rock-in-roll Physicist once said, No matter where you go, there you are.
Real, have you looked at your player software?
And is there an easy way of downloading your free player without you trying to get me to download your non-free player every step of the way?
Real seems to be implying some kind of guarantee that their music will play on the iPod... Apple has already stated that won't be the case for much longer...
Will users with iPods who buy these cheapo songs be left holding the bag (a bag of useless songs), or will songs they buy and upload to their iPod now work no matter how Apple "updates" their iPod?
-- "A chicken is an egg's way of making another egg."
is the fact that Real has already announced that they will lose more money this quarter because of this stunt. (Here is the link to CBS Marketwatch: http://cbs.marketwatch.com/news/story.asp?guid=%7b 0A42057C-77BB-4F6A-AA44-3BAF401EFEC9%7d&siteid=mkt w&dist=nbs)
Take a look at their stock price today too and see what investors are thinking about this. (see it on the MSNBC link page). While I like the idea of cheaper music, this really smacks of desperation.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
Who is going to buy DMR'ed music from a company that is struggling financially with no guarantee that the RM part of the DRM will function in 6 months.
Their ads should say...
RENT AN ALBUM FOR $4.99
ACT NOW, THIS FUNCTIONALITY WON'T LAST
What the heck is wrong with $0.99 per song? You pay more than that for a bottle of soda, for crying out loud! If you want to be able to LEGALLY download music off the 'net, you need to support valid attempts to bring that to you. As more money flows into these companies from Internet distribution methods, the Internet supporters inside music companies will grow in power (potentially overshadowing those who are trying to stop it).
Once those supporters are in power, the reign of RIAA terror may finally end. Or at least reach an equilibrium similar to the one that existed prior to MP3s.
On a different note, best 99 cents, ever!
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Considering that in order to use Real's music you must transfer it using Real's Harmony software and any errors you get will be in that software... I think people would generally be more likely to blame Real rather than Apple.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
lowering the price to $.49 or less per song seems more reasonable to me. people dont understand that by purchasing music online in mp3 (or equiv) format that they are ok with crap sounding music and if they are ok with that, what is going to keep record companies from spending less money on production when they know the music is headed for a compressed format anyway?
spend money here
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.
I still use my ultra-cheap alternative: allofmp3.com. They operate using a Russian broadcast license...
Instead of 99 cents a song, you pay a penny per megabyte. Often you can pay as little as 5 cents for a 128 bit MP3. Other formats and bitrates are available.
Best part? Since it's a Russian "broadcast", the RIAA doesn't get any of it. Tasty!
Real sells 192kbit MPEG 4 AAC encoded music now. The new encoder/player/thingy defaults to that format. Looks like they're dumping the crappy ra format, finally.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
You're right - Gnutella is stealing. I'll give back everything I stole right now.
Thanks!
-convert
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
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 - =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
What was so hard about that?
NetInfo connection failed for server 127.0.0.1/local
And don't give me that typical crap line of "I wouldn't have bought it anyway, so I'm not depriving them of a sale." If you don't really want it, or can't afford it, that doesn't justify copyright infringement. And I fully support the RIAA's actions against you, because by your own admission, you are not their customer.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
While I have no intention of buying anything from Real (they don't support Mac OS X with this scheme), and I've never bought anything from iTMS (as I live in Canada), as an iPod owner I'm still somewhat excited -- this may be good for me as an iPod owner inn an indirect way.
Apple has in the last few weeks released two iPod firmware updaters (one of which was released in the past week) -- but both have contained updates only for the 4G iPods. I bought my iPod two months too soon, and thus own the 3G iPod, for which Apple appears to have no interest in providing any software updates for.
However, if things go as many here predict, Real may force Apples hand in pushing out firmware updates for the older iPods to ensure they don't work with Real's system. And to ensure users actually apply these updates, they'll have to offer some form of incentive in the form of new features or other improvements beyond breaking compatible with Real's Harmony.
So if Apple does do something about this, iPod owners (particularily hose of us who don't have the new 4G iPod) may end up winning anyhow :).
Yaz.
Or you could just punch your favorite artist in the gut and tell him to get a day job because you're not willing to pay for his music.
It would be faster and kinder to do it directly, rather than going through Russia to do it.
(AllofMP3 is a mafia organization that doesn't have the artists' permission to represent them. It's supposed to be okay because they mail a small percentage of the pennies they charge back to artists...but they're not required to do so and artists have no recourse if they don't. By supporting it, you're supporting "legal" rights infringement via a gray market loophole. And that's FAR worse than supporting the RIAA -- at least RIAA member artists get SOME of their royalties, damnit)
Hey freaks: now you're ju
http://www.petitiononline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi? r4apple
I don't know what kind of crack I was on, but I suspect it was decaf.
Apple has done nothing to stop you from playing songs from other sources. I have tons of MP3's on my iPod that didn't come from Apple.
If all I could play on my iPod with FairPlay DRM'ed tunes, then I would be upset. However as it stands I'm free to not use iTMS as much or as little as I please and still have a wonderful iPod experience.
Remember Real can make their own music store anytime they want w/o violating an Apple held copyright, and by the same token it isn't Apple's responsibility to make sure they succeed.
It's one thing to complain about companies who lock out competition and make their own products worthless. I would say Apple is not one of them.
100% Crunchier
Finding something I like involves a little extra digging, sampling, and detective work... but I actually find that more interesting than being spoonfed Very Popular Radio Hitz complete with useless yet encumbering software designed around the premise that I am a thief. I keep a few bucks in a Bitpass account, a few bucks in my Paypal account, it's all pretty easy.
It doesn't sound like it. You said it involves, "a little extra digging, sampling, and detective work."
Now using iTunes is easy. I don't see how that point can even be debated, the interface is awesome, the songs are what they say they are, the downloads are fast, you can sample 30 seconds of a song before buying (more than most CD stores allow), etc.
Yet you try to marginalize it by pretending all the music in itunes is "Very Popular Radio Hitz." I'm sorry, but that is just plain old horseshit.
Then you say that iTunes is "useless yet encumbering software designed around the premise that I am a thief."
It obviously is not useless. For one thing, it saves me from having to do "a little extra digging, sampling, and detective work." It lets me buy music in a setting where the legality is not in doubt. It makes it easy to do all of this. Useless?
iTunes doesn't have a "premise that [you are] a thief." iTunes is there to make it easy to organize, buy, and use your digital music.
It may be a minority but who's spending smarter money?
In your case, what with all your detective work, digging, etc for music, I would say you're only spending your money smarter if your time is worthless.
Mine isn't, so I use iTunes.
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
When I go to real.com using Safari 1.2, I get a page about RealPlayer 10, which makes no mention of, and has no links to, RealPlayer music store or Harmony. When I visit the same URL, spoofing as "Windows MSIE 6.0" (aka "TEH INTARWEB BROWZOR") I get a big promo about Harmony and the .49/song sale.
Pretty sure there's no Mac OS X version of this whole Harmony thing.
Does anybody know how this Harmony thing works? Does it import the songs into iTunes so you can play them in iTunes/sync them to iPod as normal? Or does it make you do a separate sync to put the Real songs on the iPod, restricting you to playing them only on the iPod and RealPlayer?