Web Based Rhapsody Targets Linux

Asklepius M.D. writes "According to Marketwatch, RealNetworks is releasing a web based version of Rhapsody called.....Rhapsody.com that will function on other-than-IE browsers including Firefox and Safari. The article quotes Jupimedia analyst Joe Wilcox as saying "...it brings the first real subscription music service to Mac and Linux-based products.""

Comments

Drm on linux

[hug_the_penguin]

DRM has no kernel support in linux, and one assumes they're using DRM. An estimate of 3 days 'til it's cracked?

Re:Drm on linux

[slashedmydot]

even if it did, you could rip it out...

That's the beauty of open source, it's very resistent against unwanted stuff.

Re:Drm on linux

[Crimsane]

I think this sounds pretty cracked already, thanks.

Re:Drm on linux

[EtherAlchemist]

Not sure the DRM applies here- the music is streamed into a player, not downloaded for playback later.

Re:Drm on linux

[knipknap]

DRM support has been in the Linux kernel for years.

Re:Drm on linux

[hug_the_penguin]

The DRM would be used to ensure it could not be recorded, even if it is something simple like macrovision-style (So easily cracked)

Re:Drm on linux

[Wolfger]

Hence the application "StreamRipper", which records streaming audio to mp3 for later playback. This is nothing more than modern-day "taping songs off the radio", except when I was a kid, I could tape more than 25 songs a month. I'm much more interested in Independant and Creative Commons music these days. The RIAA doesn't want to play nice, so I just won't play with them at all.

Re:Drm on linux

[hug_the_penguin]

I'm very much with that view myseld. i'm currently setting up a site for independent artists to put on their music and get revenue through adclicks and donations instead of murdering their art.

Re:Drm on linux

[Sim2]

And as the content community is very resistent to selling content to computers not using DRM, then Linux is cutting itself off from the mainstream. We all rejoice when there are signs of success for Linux on the desktop, but right now Linux makes no sense if you want to buy music or films from the comfort of your own home.

I for one would welcome a Linux DRM technology that content providers were happy to work with.

Re:Drm on linux

[kbielefe]

I admit to being way out of the loop on Windows, but it was my understanding that Windows didn't have or require kernel support for DRM technology in current wide use.

The mainstream Linux kernel has had a driver for infineon trusted platform modules since 2.6.12. I didn't even know any motherboards had shipped with those chips (have any?). User libraries and kernel patches were available well before 2.6.12. Linux has supported kernel-level encryption for ages, and is also on the forefront of technologies like mandatory access control. Not to mention how easy it would be to write a kernel module to implement one's own preferred flavor of DRM.

In short, Linux is an excellent operating system to implement DRM on. Low user interest and even lower vendor interest are the main problems, not the kernel.

That being said, I think that all DRM is inherently flawed without some serious hardware support, and that it will probably always be crackable on a general purpose computer with any operating system, simply due to the fact that the unencrypted data must be available on the machine at some point. I concur with your 3 day estimate.

iTunes

[sardonic2]

I figured iTunes worked on Mac's.. guess I know less about Apple Strategery than I thought.

Re:iTunes

[BushCheney08]

You missed the key word there - subscription. It is the first music service on Mac and Linux where you can pay and pay, but ultimately never own anything in the end.

Re:iTunes

[TheGavster]

First subscription music service.

Re:iTunes

[EtherAlchemist]

I figured iTunes worked on Mac's.. guess I know less about Apple Strategery than I thought.

iTunes is not a subscription service. From the headline - "...it brings the first real subscription music service to Mac and Linux-based products."
 

Re:iTunes

[sardonic2]

Ouch totally missed that ones comrades... i'll tell Al-Zawahiri... i mean Al subscription is the key..

Re:iTunes

[WesBEnterprise]

Wait, are you saying that I do own the songs I purchase on iTMS? Because I just can't get them to play on my iRiver...

Re:iTunes

[connorbd]

Get an iMic and rerip to MP3. There are ways around DRM.

Re:iTunes

[reub2000]

But eMusic, a real subscription based music service already supports both platforms.

Mac? BSD?

[uberjoe]

Maybe to be more inclusive the article should read "Rapshody Targets non-windows users" instead of linux. Last I checked Safari was was not available for linux.

Re:Mac? BSD?

[morgan_greywolf]

Last I checked Safari was was not available for linux. Maybe not, but you can get a browser based on Apple's WebCore rendering engine (essentially modifications to KHTML) for Linux called Gtk+ WebCore, which is based on GTK 2.x.

Re:Mac? BSD?

[ninjaz]

Maybe to be more inclusive the article should read "Rapshody Targets non-windows users" instead of linux. Last I checked Safari was was not available for linux.

A music subscription service for Mac isn't newsworthy, though, with iTunes being widely available there. ;) As for BSD, while it may be possible to use this service there, the realplayer port requires Linux emulation to be installed last I checked, so they wouldn't appear to be 'targetted'. Rather, they'd be jumping in front of the arrow, hoping to be grazed.

Re:Mac? BSD?

[JeffTL]

"Unix" would have probably been a better headline here; remember that a plurality of Unix users are specifically using Mac OS X, and that's probably the market Real after which Real wants to go with this action.

Re:Mac? BSD?

[laffer1]

Yeah presuming you're running on ia32 architecture you can run the linux emulation port. OpenBSD on my wife's ibook won't work of course. As for the relevance of rhapsody vs itunes, I'm an itunes and rhapsody customer. iTunes is great for songs that I really want to keep. Rhapsody is nice for entertaining and casual listening when i'm at home. It takes up much less disk space. (streaming) My issue with rhapsody is that anything in your library is subject to random screw ups since licenses don't auto renew properly. I've only been using rhapsody for a few months and itunes since the first week it was out in the US. I'm just happy i can use rhapsody on the road now. (ibook laptop, pc desktop)

Re:Mac? BSD?

[Predius]

So you're saying Gtk+ WebCore is so badly coded it will ONLY run on a linux kernel based OS?

Re:Mac? BSD?

[dr.badass]

Maybe to be more inclusive the article should read "Rapshody Targets non-windows users" instead of linux.

And maybe to be more accurate it should read "Rhapsody Flails Around Aimlessly in the Dark In Search of User Base".

Re:Mac? BSD?

[ToasterofDOOM]

Not all alternative OSes are Unix. What about BeOS? Syllable? I know they are an infintesimal minority but the point is that they are not simply target ing *nix platforms.

Re:Mac? BSD?

[JeffTL]

It may work on other platforms, but they are targeting Unix; few people use BeOS or Syllable, compared to BSD (including Mac OS) and Linux, much less Windows.

It's a step forward...

[AEther141]

It's a shame it's not a naitive app, but these days it's mattering less and less that something is browser based. Still, nice that more firms are acknowledging non-windows users, albeit in a slightly lipserviced manner.

Re:It's a step forward...

[MSG]

It's not *that* tight-lipped. If you go to the www.real.com page in a Linux browser, you'll see a section in big letters: "Helix Community needs Linux users like you"

Still using DRM'd WMV files though, right?

[Rude Turnip]

It's really nice of them to release a web-based service, but wouldn't the customers still be beholden to WMV files infected with DRM? They'll work fine when I'm using my work PC running Windows XP, but they're utterly useless on my iBook + iPod or my (admittedly little used) Ubuntu installation.

Re:Still using DRM'd WMV files though, right?

[MSG]

Since it's a subscription service, yes. It is intended to be more or less streaming only. The player will cache content so that you don't have to stream it *every* time, but encryption is required to make it a subscription service rather than a free download site.

On the other hand, if you use the Windows app and purchase content, you'll download CD-quality tracks that you can burn, and have all the rights you'd have to any audio CD.

From Real?

[b4k3d b34nz]

I already don't trust Real--I sure wouldn't want to give them any money to continue their annoying advertising and generally poor quality programming by paying their subscriptions. Also, I don't think I'd want to stream music through a browser. When I'm listening to music, I want the player down in a tray.

Re:From Real?

[hug_the_penguin]

Their realplayer for windows is practically spyware. How many legitimate programs can get away with passing advertising messages, embedding adverts, popping up annoying content etc. and not get called adware.

How many companies can do this and then charge for `premium` functionality?

Real's days are at an end. They support very few portable music players, and what happens when noone wants to let real support their player? What happens to all your DRMed music then? And what happens when their ads get more invasive and more annoying?

Re:From Real?

[Prophet of Nixon]

The continued existence of Real has confused and infuriated me since at least 1999... seriously, how can the company function? And how can you be so sure that their days are at an end when there has been no compelling reason for their days to be at all for so long? I do hope you're right though.

Re:From Real?

[daranz]

Wait... there's a player that comes with that RealOne thing?

Seriously, though, I don't see nearly as much realplayer-exclusive content on the Web as I used to. Kinda shows you that nobody likes Real anymore, and rightfully so. They missed the point of what a media player should be by miles.

Re:From Real?

[pregister]

I've used Rhapsody for a year or two now. It's a decent service. Ignore their "programming". Listen to what you want to listen to. As far as it being in a browser, their windows based program pretty much implements a browser in the app itself...which is kinda slow and kludgy...i think trying one that is actually stand alone browser-based might improve things.

NOTE: I don't buy music through rhapsody. I use it to sample new releases, catch up on things I might have missed before, track down the odd song from my youth, and listen to stuff that is available on usenet before I download it. ;)

For the $9/month (or around there, i haven't checked in a while) its the easiest way to listen to music that i don't already own (the only exception is the old days of audiogalaxy. Best. Site. Ever.) ...helps me decide what music i wanna track down to stick on my ipod.

-p

Re:From Real?

[joeljkp]

Ever used their Linux player? It's very simple, doesn't do any unwanted things, fits in with the rest of the GNOME desktop, and is open source (except for the codecs in the commercial version). Real's the only major online media company out there paying Linux any attention at all. I say we keep them around.

Re:From Real?

[b4k3d b34nz]

Sorry, I didn't mean programming as in lineup, I meant computer programming, which would explain the slowness of the inline brwoser that they implement. Real player is also quite slow, sometimes stuttery, even with plenty of RAM. Is rhapsody the same way? I know it's only dealing with music, which is obviously much less intensive than video. I just don't think it's worth it to have to pay a subscription as well as for each song you want to download. Are there any major benefits over iTunes?

Re:From Real?

[Albanach]

First off, Real have been around a long time and while the big media sites stream using their software they're going nowhere.

Secondly, RealPlayer is a heck of a lot better than it once was. It's also straightforward to find the free player on their site, after a period where they hid it in the depths of real.com

Sure this is a subscription service - that means it's not for everyone. However there are also lots of folk who are happy to pay $10 a month for a huge music library.

Real made their player available for linux, made their server open source and suffer only complaints.

They're a big company and they make their music player available so it works on Linux and the Mac and supports Firefox perfectly. Folk still complain.

Real's business model is subscription music. That might not be of interest to you so go bug Apple to provide you with iTunes on Linux. In the mean time don't take out your frustrations that apple are ignoring you on another firm that has chose to welcom Linux - Real should be applauded for this

Re:From Real?

[JazzCrazed]

Agreed on just about all your points. My style of listening has me exploring a lot of unknowns, and reaching those previously obscure corners is really easy with Rhapsody. Actually, it was through Audiogalaxy that I learnt of Rhapsody. I also used to use that website exclusively for my music, and when it stopped running as it did, it converted to Rhapsody. So now I use "Audiogalaxy Rhapsody" (which I think by all intents and purposes is the same as any other Rhapsody).

Re:From Real?

[hug_the_penguin]

Yes, i downloaded it, i didn't like it and i can't get most codecs to work with it.

What use is a program that runs on linux but doesn't work properly?

The media revolution is upon us. Execs have ripped off the artist for too long and a new business model that can be sustained is needed. Donations and advertising will be it.

Re:From Real?

[joeljkp]

Yeah, it'd be great if they made it work with the gstreamer framework instead of having their own. But as far as the codecs that come with it already, it works fine here.

Re:From Real?

[Lehk228]

there is nothing wrong with adware, realplayer used to be crappy but they have improved it tremendously. i have it installed on both of mymachines and only see it when i launch it manually or open real media files/streams

Re:From Real?

[Quino]

In addition to agreeing with you: real's player on Linux is actually rather nice (one of the nicest, IMHO -- they've come a long way), AFAIK it's the only *legal* way to listen to MP3s in the US under Linux (I am wrong about this?).

Re:From Real?

[milkman_matt]

Have to agree with you there.. I was always of the opinion that real sucked myself, "You can have our free player, but it'll take you an hour and a half to find it because you can only access it via a spiderweb of links on our site!" and all.. but now their free player is on their homepage, and actually has some content worth watching, news, sports, etc, for free now. the new player is a lot nicer, less ads, less intrusive, and multiplatform (I can only speak for the Mac version.) but it seems that they're a lot 'less evil' than they used to be at the very least. Wonder what it'll take for real to become 'socially acceptable' someday. Looks like they're trying at least.

Re:From Real?

[Koatdus]

I say we keep them around.

I agree. I use mplayer which plays both windows media and real files just fine, (in fact the windows media files stream a little smoother).

Whenever I am on a web site that does video streaming I will choose real if it is available, just to keep the Real usership numbers up on site. This isn't because I love Real but rather because they released a player for Linux when there were no others available.

I also expect Microsoft to do as Apple does and try to break open viewers with each new release. At least Real doesn't try to punish you for using Linux.

To go off on a tangent that is one of the things that really, really pisses me off about Apple. They go out of their way to exclude Linux users. Oh well they are slowly losing relevance as a pc company anyway. Soon they will be just another os on intel. With Linux PC's available at Fry's for under $200 both they and Microsoft will be tightening their belts more and more over the next few years. They look to me like they are trying to become a consumer electonics company. For now it seems to be working with the iPods and such but I wonder how long it will be before people start noticing the emperors cloths. The iPod is "stylish" and "hip" and "cool" but is it really the best mp3 player out there?....maybe.

I know Apple users are not likely to switch to Linux but young users will. The next generation of computer users don't have any problem at all using Linux. They don't seem to need the dumbed down interface either. My kids have no problem logging on, changing their screens/icons/menus and using the software. Their little friends don't seem to have any problems either. They actually fight over which one gets to use my computer and which one has to use moms windows machine. Moms spec's out better but mine feels faster/smoother and doesn't lock up when they play flash games on it.

Re:From Real?

[joeljkp]

"AFAIK it's the only *legal* way to listen to MP3s in the US under Linux"

Technically yes, though I have an email in my possession from Thomson's legal dept. saying that it's ok for people to encode/decode with non-licensed software for their own personal use. Still though, the licensed player is a good step.

Re:From Real?

[hug_the_penguin]

You need 2 things to survive on linux:

• support for linux
• An appreciation of the morals of linux users

And so they give us DRMed subscription based music which would go against the morals and not suit either. Itunes does the morals thing too so why would they move to linux if linux users dont want to buy music that doesn't do what it ought to?

Re:From Real?

[pregister]

I don't find it to be stuttery at all. The sound quality is...adequate. Its not massive variable bitrate quality, but for streaming music its pretty damn good. The only benefit over iTunes, imo, is the subscription thing. The subscription part is what I use it for. The only times I've ever actually paid to download/burn songs was when a coworker needed some reasonably obscure songs for her church choir to practice along with...found pretty much everything she wanted and made a CD for her (does that count as a good deed?).

If you're looking for a place to buy and download music...i'd personally stick with iTunes. Rhapsody won't give you any benefits over that. Its strength is the ability to stream anything from their library that you want to. I use it at work all the time (although for my musical tastes, i could probably just as easily get by with Radio Paradise http://www.radioparadise.com/.

I actually like rhapsody's personal radio station thing too. Make your own "radio station", plug in 5-10 bands that you like, and you have a customized radio station playing those bands and other music that they determine are "similar" (they do a pretty good job of that, though).

Sheesh, I sound like an ad guy for 'em. YMMV.

-p

Re:From Real?

[pregister]

Yeah, I remember this "radio" of which you speak. I remember, years and years ago, when it was possible to find good radio...when djs programmed their own shows and there was some personality to the whole experience. Those days are, for the most part, long gone. You might be lucky enough to live in an area that still has decent radio. Be grateful. Occasionally I'll listen to college radio here in Minneapolis...not bad, sometimes.

I agree that there is decent internet radio...and I'm in love with a handful of podcasts...I think podcasts have the potential to be what radio used to be...but licensing and the RIAA will really never let that happen to the extent that it should.

Re:From Real?

[superpulpsicle]

Yeah I got Rhapsody too. Someone recommended it on slashdot ages ago and it has IMHO topped Napster in everyway. The occassional annoyance is the "buy-only" tracks for new albums. But those eventually go away and become freebie streams anyways.

It really opened up a market of artists and songs that I would ordinarily be too afraid to invest my money in. Now I listen to 1% mainstream and 99% underground. Only after Rhapsody would you realize how much shit has been flooding your local radio and MTV.

Re:From Real?

[JazzCrazed]

Ars Technica theorizes that Real's ultimate goal is mobile penetration. And honestly, I see no other route for them. One of the other reasons I like Rhapsody is that I can play it back wherever I have the client installed, which is awfully convenient - but with the upside that I'm not centralizing the music on a relatively easy to lose portable. And sadly enough, I have lost enough portables in the past that this is a big benefit to me.

I think a portable device eschewing all those relatively big and costly hard and flash drives in favor of, say, higher quality audio equipment and a wifi antenna for feeding into Rhapsody would be the ultimate.

Although in the meantime, I'd greatly appreciate Linux support! Is this web-based, platform-neutral addition rolled out already? I checked out Real's site, and saw that they seemed to have the components for it in place, but I was automatically shot down for my "browser and operating system combination," which is currently Firefox 1.5 and Ubuntu Linux. Ah well... I'll always have my usual strategy, which is dubbing the music streams analog to Vorbis files.

Re:From Real?

[dublin]

How many legitimate programs can get away with passing advertising messages, embedding adverts, popping up annoying content etc. and not get called adware.

How many companies can do this and then charge for `premium` functionality?

Good question, there are lots of ad-based apps and services that are not generally considered adware. For instance, until very recently, you could count Opera in that category. You still can count Google (Maps, Earth, and Gmail, anyone?), Yahoo and their ilk in that category. (Interestingly, MSN seems to have stepped back from this, although their recent deal with TimeWarner may mark the end of that and a full-frontal assault on Google's ad-based model.)

Like it or not, ad-based apps/services are a proven business model, and are probably here to stay...

Good news

[bogaboga]

Because services are moving to the Web. They should have done it much earlier.

But the question is: Will Linux users use Real's product? Reviews on Real's products here on slashdot have not been that favuorable in the past.

Re:Good news

[EtherAlchemist]

Will Linux users use Real's product?

If you use Xandros the RealPlayer comes as the default media player. This is not a bad deal either, because the Linux player is not crammed full of ads- it does what a media player should: play media. I give the Xandros guys a lot of credit, too, because ever since they started bundling the RealPlayer with their distro, they've been the ones to actually make the install work. Prior to that, Real had (still does I think) it listed as an alpha.

I would think more Linux folks would be attracted to Real, actually, because they have the open source version of the player and server, Helix and last I checked neither Apple nor MS have made their player OSS.

Re:Good news

[Beatbyte]

if it is cheap enough, functional, high enough quality (192kbps minimum), and works in the formats requested (see: mp3 and ogg), they may be able to grab a few customers away from iTMS.

Re:Good news

[outZider]

Quick news flash.

Ogg isn't a requested format. No one cares about ogg. Slashdot != everyone. :)

Re:Good news

[Anonymous Coward]

[...]and last I checked neither Apple nor MS have made their player OSS.

You actually check for things like that?

Re:Good news

[Rutulian]

Yeah, right. The problem is the Helix player doesn't do the one thing linux people have been clamoring about for years: play Real files! You have to separately download Realplayer, which means going to their website, accepting their license, downloading a .bin file, blah blah blah (in other words, no apt-get install realplayer). It is the exact same issue as before. The player is fine, but the licensing crap is a pain. It's not like we didn't already have several media players that work just fine. We don't need another media player. We need something that plays Real files. And it's not even a matter of open-sourcing their codecs. All they need to do is provide a binary codec that will plug into gstreamer or something. Both Xine and MPlayer already support binary loading of codecs. They just don't do the real format very well, so a good binary Real codec would solve a lot of problems. But no, we can't do it the easy way....

Re:Good news

[dacarr]

Under Debiab, RealPlayer is available on the Marillat archives, and works quite well.

Re:Good news

[shlashdot]

Streaming was only 128 last I checked. That's why I switched to Yahoo. Otherwise Rhapsody is way nicer. Anbody know the streaming rate now for Rhapsody?

Re:Good news

[agentcdog]

I certainly will be using this. I subscribe to rhapsody (which, BTW is a separate app from RealPlayer). This solves two problems for me. First, now I can listen to music in linux through rhapsody. Second, because it's web-based, I can use it at school, where I cannot install programs. This is a great thing for me. If you don't like their service, it isn't for you. That's a given, so who cares.

Capitalization is everything

[richdun]

"...it brings the first Real subscription music service to Mac and Linux-based products."

Silly Real, of course it's their first subscription service available to Mac and Linux users.

Re:Capitalization is everything

[BushCheney08]

It's one of those phrases that can work both ways. It's the first Real (as in the company) subscription service for Macs and Linux, as well as the first real (as in actually existing - well, once it's rolled out) subscription service for Macs and Linux. And for those of you out there saying "But what about iTunes?!?", it doesn't count because it's a music store. It is not a subscription service.

Re:Capitalization is everything

[DietFluffy]

they don't mean 'Real' the company. this is actually the first subscription music service for mac and linux.

Subscription

[everphilski]

This is a subscription service, iTunes is not.
-everphilski-

Who Cares!

[hzs202]

Rhapsody.com that will function on other-than-IE browsers including Firefox and Safari. The article quotes Jupimedia analyst Joe Wilcox as saying "...it brings the first real subscription music service to Mac and Linux-based products."

If it sucks anything like Realplayer plugins... then who cares!

Real is being the pioneer...

[Capeman]

They could be the first real subscription music service for Linux, but if other companies see that it's working they will follow.

really?

[andy4322]

When I tried their free trial, I got this:

http://cache.ultramercial.com/d/033-218/civic_hyb_ os_false.html

Re:really?

[ajdowntown]

What does the Honda Civic have anything to do with Rhapsody? Anyone else see that?

It bothers me

[4D6963]

The name Rhapsody bothers me, everytime I hear it I think it's gonna be something about Apple's Rhadsody, Mac OS X's daddy, seriously, they should pick another name..

Re:It bothers me

[BarryNorton]

The name Rhapsody bothers me, everytime I hear it I think it's gonna be something about Apple's Rhadsody

I always think (seriously) that it's going to be something about ILogix Rhapsody.

Either way I agree - Real should have picked a more novel name...

Re:It bothers me

[IntergalacticWalrus]

And I thought it was about the Italian metal group Rhapsody.

Let's face it, Rhapsody is a vastly overused name. Real could've picked something better.

Re:It bothers me

[GarfBond]

Right, they need to change the name of their fully released product because you keep mixing it up with the codename of an old Apple project.

That sure sounds smart.

Re:It bothers me

[4D6963]

Haha, good point. Forget what I said then. Still bothers me tho.

Re:It bothers me

[DA-MAN]

The name Rhapsody bothers me, everytime I hear it I think it's gonna be something about Apple's Rhadsody, Mac OS X's daddy, seriously, they should pick another name..

I always think of Wayne and Garth singin along to Bohemian Rhapsody in the car. . .

Re:It bothers me

[joeljkp]

Real didn't pick it - Listen.com did, before they were bought by Real.

Re:It bothers me

[Jesselnz]

The first time I heard about it, I thought it had something to do with the metal band Rhapsody.

Re:iTunes doesn't work on Mac? LOL

[mrljt]

RTFA. The first real SUBSCRIPTION music service for Linux. iTunes is not subscription based. iTunes is a download service. There's a big difference in subsciption and download music services. Stop your trolling and read the article.

Not WMV. Whatever it is, not that

[CdBee]

Real use their own DRM scheme on AAC (Advanced Audio Codec)

Its likely - from my guess, not the article - that they'll stream a file to an in-browser player. But then, remember this is all the words of a third-party "analyst" - which often means rumour-monger.

Re:Not WMV. Whatever it is, not that

[ultima]

It requires you to install a browser plugin, then the songs are played through that plugin -- it's fairly large at 1.1MB downloaded, 2.7mB installed -- it's called nprhapengine.so, which definately incorporates a lot of Helix code, and is also statically linked to some open-source software (OpenSSL, libcURL at least). The player works well enough, but the playlist is buggy -- it doesn't seem to support multiple playlists, or even deletion of individual songs from the playlist. And it didn't import the playlists used by the native Windows client (which are stored on the server). But then again, what's there works for me, and there is a "BETA" icon in the upper left of the browser window.

I got the request to install the plugin as soon as I hit any of the play buttons (the arrows next to tracks) on Rhapsody.com; this is the case on Firefox and Safari.

Yeah, but

[zigziggityzoo]

Apple has always stated that iTMS exists to sell iPods, not the other way around. if someone creates another service to expand the use/sales of iPods, who cares?

Rhapsody.com launched - Free & Legal Music

[kforeman]

Yes, Real today launched the beta Helix-powered www.Rhapsody.com, a Web version of the music service that offers consumers a free and legal way to play full length songs from all the major music labels. Any US-based consumer can freely access up to 25 songs/mo, via the new www.Rhapsody.com site and for the first time Linux and Mac users can experience Rhapsody.

The music service enables your favorite browser (IE, Firefox, or Safari) to instantly find, listen, and share, for free, up to 25 full tracks (from 1.4M+ songs) per month. Consumers also get free, unlimited access to 25 commercial-free radio stations.

There is NO credit card registration required to begin using the service and the music industry is compensated for each song played via Rhapsody.com

Real also introduced its new Rhapsody Web Services initiative, which will enable Web sites to access Rhapsody music services. Web portals, community sites, music sites, and other web sites wanting to integrate music services into their web experience can now access services such as song playback and editorial content.

The new Rhapsody Web Services initiative will enable websites to integrate Rhapsody music services. Tools for Web sites to create links, called "Rhaplinks," to individual music tracks, full albums, and radio stations that can be integrated into their Web sites and that enable immediate playback from Rhapsody.com;

* XML feeds, including RSS, of Rhapsody editorial information about music, which third party Web sites can integrate directly into their sites -- such as new releases, top 10 tracks, and top 10 albums.

* A blog for developers to participate in the future roadmap and development of the Rhapsody Web Services initiative.

More information can be found at http://www.rhapsody.com/webservices.

Initial companies supporting Rhapsody.com and the Rhapsody Web Services initiative include Comcast, RollingStone.com, and MSN. Specific implementations include:

* Comcast became the first service provider to launch a new Web-based Rhapsody radio service. The Comcast Rhapsody Web Radio service is currently available to Comcast's 8.1M broadband customers. The service further complements Comcast's online music offering, which also includes: Rhapsody Radio PLUS, Rhapsody Unlimited, and Rhapsody To Go. Comcast Rhapsody Radio provides 50 commercial-free, genre-based stations (www.comcast.net/music).

* RollingStone.com, the official online presence for pop culture icon Rolling Stone, has integrated Rhapsody web services technology throughout its site. The new site, http://www.rollingstone.com/ enables visitors to sample full length free tracks in Rhapsody and view music videos along with the magazine's archive of groundbreaking music news coverage, feature articles, interviews, photos, movie/album reviews and in-depth political reporting.

* In the coming weeks, Rhapsody.com will be available within Microsoft's WiMP 10, and in the coming months, MSN will be using Rhapsody Web Services to integrate Rhapsody into its MSN Search, MSN Messenger and MSN Music services.

For more information, visit http://www.rhapsody.com./

Re:Rhapsody.com launched - Free & Legal Music

[b4k3d b34nz]

...and the music industry is compensated for each song played via Rhapsody.com

Meaning that we get to pay the RIAA to sue more 12 year olds and grandparents, or that artists are getting a decent cut of the dough?

Re:Rhapsody.com launched - Free & Legal Music

[joeljkp]

Just tried it - awesome! I might subscribe if I use it enough.

One request (besides the standard "make it open-source" ones): can I use it in Epiphany? I get a browser error when I try, but I'm not sure if that's due to some UI detection, or if it really is a Firefox-only thing.

Re:Rhapsody.com launched - Free & Legal Music

[ZachPruckowski]

I can see this idea working as a "try it before you buy it" type of thing. I mean, it'd allow me to hear a song on the radio, then legally hear the whole CD before deciding to buy it. I use iTunes mostly anyways, but it beats the mere 30-seconds iTunes plays the songs for free.

But paying money for browser-only music? Forget that. I don't feel like carrying my laptop around with me, and holding it open to listen to songs. If I pay for a song, I'm going to pay to be able to play it wherever, whenever. I don't think people listen to the majority of their music when they are online.

Re:Rhapsody.com launched - Free & Legal Music

[_randy_64]

* Comcast became the first service provider to launch a new Web-based Rhapsody radio service. The Comcast Rhapsody Web Radio service is currently available to Comcast's 8.1M broadband customers. The service further complements Comcast's online music offering, which also includes: Rhapsody Radio PLUS, Rhapsody Unlimited, and Rhapsody To Go. Comcast Rhapsody Radio provides 50 commercial-free, genre-based stations (www.comcast.net/music).

Thank you for that, I was going to ask if anyone knew about Comcast's support. I know they have a free Rhapsody offer, but it's been Windows only. I'll use the free one under Linux for sure. I just like to listen to a lot of different music; if I hear something I really like, I'll buy it and rip my own tracks.

randy

Speaking of Linux Support

[Anonymous Coward]

Using konqueror, it says:

"Incompatible Browser
  We're sorry. We currently only support the following browsers: Internet Explorer 6 and higher, Firefox 1.0.1 and higher, Safari 1.3 and higher and Netscape 8 and higher.

  Firefox 1.0 users, click here to upgrade"

Ok, let's try using Firefox 1.5:

"To play music, you'll need to do a quick install
Just follow these two easy steps.

      1.

            Install Rhapsody Music Engine

            Click the button below and follow our direction on the next screen.
      2.

            Register Free

            Get a free Rhapsody Account.
            No Credit Card required.

We're sorry but the combination of your operating system and Firefox 1.5 is not currently supported."

Re:Speaking of Linux Support

[perltooc]

This is a big day for Linux on the desktop. I finally got rid of my remaining Windows partitions several months ago and the *only* thing I missed was at having the option of using some kind of subscription based music service. I hope they work out any technical glitches for those users that are having problems. For me the plugin install went perfectly (Fedora 4/Firefox 1.0.7) and I gladly plunked down the credit card moments afterwards. For those of you who like to hate on the subscription-based music model, keep in mind that when you buy a CD you don't "own" that music either. If you did, you'd be able to replace a scratched CD for the cost of the medium (what, 50 cents?). Also, how much would it cost in money and time to maintain (rip, encode, manage, backup) a library of, say, 10000 songs? Rhapsody has like over a million. Anyway, I used to hate Real for it's over-the-top attempts to monetize their products, but they've come a long way. I say cheers to them for supporting Linux like this and giving folks one less reason to use Windows.

Another horrible execution plan by Real

[Anonymous Coward]

As typical by this poorly organized and completely out-to-lunch company a great idea put together with horrible execution. Obviously companies try to launch products on their first day with a big media blitz. So far so good, they get the front page of Slashdot, many newspapers (http://seattle-pi.com/ articles and widespread coverage on mac news sites (http://www.macnn.com./

So, how about trying it? Well, you can go to the Rhapsody site, http://rhapsody.com/ and try to get to it. Well, NOTHING on the rhapsody.com site says anything about the web features. Nothing in the FAQ and the system requirements say Windows only. If you're going to launch a major new feature don't you think you would update your home page?

If you click to "TRY RHAPSODY" you come to a jump page and if you select either option, one says "Windows required" and the other says "Rhapsody is currently offered only on Windows..." Oh nice.

So, if you're super persistent, then you can go to http://real.com/ . You will notice the web page doesn't even load, and stalls somewhere around 50% loading of the 31 items on the page. Ooops, looks like their servers can't handle the load. Oh , some poor Sys Admin's pager is blowing off the hook right about now I'm sure. Real's CTO Mesrobian is probably trolling down the hallways with a bat clubbing engineers like baby seals and screaming like a banshee.

If you manage to find the small text link at the bottom of the real.com page "Rhapsody Unlimited for Mac" that page also barely loads. And then, there doesn't seem to be any obvious way to the 25 free trial without giving them your credit card number.

Horrible launch, a disgusting display of web marketing. My 15 year old sister could do 50 times better than this and she could create a website that looks more visually appealing than this blue and white patchwork.

Good luck Real, hope your servers recover and hope people come back to try it some other day when they can actually find the software.

Re:Another horrible execution plan by Real

[b4k3d b34nz]

Well, either Real's servers recovered or your browser/internet connection sucks. It loaded in less that a second on our less-than-perfect connection here at work.

By the way, I don't think your 15 year old sister could do a better job. I think too many people don't understand that just because "anyone can create a website" doesn't mean that everyone does it well. Their website isn't that bad. In fact, it seems to be the best thing Real has ever done. Their main product is Real Player. Guess what's at the top of the page? Real Player. Guess what's new? Rhapsody? It's at the top of the page too. I think you just got out of the bed on the wrong side this morning...they seem to be doing a fine job of releasing their product, crappy though it is.

Re:Another horrible execution plan by Real

[iceanfire]

what are you talking about? I went to real.com (it loaded up just fine on firefox". Clicked on the listen for free button. Downloaded the plugin for firefox. Signed up. And it started playing music. Seems like an okay execution. No problems for me (except ofcourse the 25 play limit / mo).

Re:Another horrible execution plan by Real

[gurustu]

It sounds like you hit the URL before the service actually went live. You might want to try again ...

feel used

[nazsco]

watched the ad for the some-days-free.. sounded like an honest deal.

*after* the ad, i'm informed that the service is not available in my country.

now i'll have some sweet memories about the product being advertised there... and will surely buy a dozen

When?

[trollable]

I probably missed something but on every page at rhapsody.com, you will read:
System Requirements: Windows XP, Me, 2000 or 98 SE. 350 MHz, 380 MB HD Space, 64 MB Ram
RTFA. Ok, on Monday. Not yet. OK. is going to be realeased. probably.

Canada?

[sirber]

Still doesn't work in Canada, whatever the browser :(

Please don't

[dkone]

I thought Linux was invented to get away from the 'bad' stuff of computing.

And here is what you get

[9gezegen]

when you try to subscribe on a debian machine
We're sorry but the combination of your operating system and Firefox 1.5 is not currently supported.

Re:And here is what you get

[dacarr]

No problem using Sarge and firefox-1.0.4-2. Downgrade perhaps?

Not Quite First

[10sball]

"...it brings the first real subscription music service to Mac"

If you ignore EMusic.. which has had an OS X download client for some time now

Re:Not Quite First

[drinkypoo]

I DO ignore emusic, they want a credit card before I can get a free trial.

Re:Rhapsody?

[FluffyWithTeeth]

That's Copland. Rhapsody did become OSX; it just got a little clean up, and a better GUI.

Other music subscription service for Linux:

[Capeman]

Rhapsody isn't the only one, there's also eMusic, the development of the Linux version of the download manager has been discontinued, but it works.

Are you sure?

[CdBee]

Rhapsody launched using AAC with DRM. As far as I'm aware they still do.

Their "Harmony" player transcodes the AAC music into either Fairplay AAC for use on an iPod or DRM WMA to play on Microsoft-compatible devices.

Where is it?

[dacarr]

Have to say I liked Rhapsody when I had the free trial with Speakeasy a couple of years ago, and don't like that it's not available on Linux. So then, it was launched on Monday, and presumably that means "today", 05Dec2005. So where do I go to use this? Why have Real not updated the Rhapsody site?

Re:The only online Music store that does it right

[LainTouko]

On one hand, the reason they can do this is because their location in Russia means they don't have to pay the RIAA and the like. But on the other hand, only a tiny amount of the money you pay in mainstream stores gets back to the musicians anyway.

Happy Day!

[whitelabrat]

I've been using Rhapsody for quite a while now and I'm VERY happy that I can use it on something other than Windows! I'll be curious to try it out on my Sun box to see if it can work on a ULTRAsparc.

The link to rhapsody.com service

[dacarr]

Never mind, I found it. Click here and play.

About Time!

[cresswell]

I used Rhapsody on Windows, (when I still ran Windows) and I liked it a lot. But no linux, no rhapsody. I'll be following this closely.

Barbara

Inspire the Next

[SpinJaunt]

Really should of been Googles tag-line, not Hitachis.. did anyone notice the BETA word on the page? (next to the Rhapsody logo)

Possibly a Reaction to Recent Release

[Carcass666]

I've been a Rhapsody subscriber for three years. A few months ago, Rhapsody released a new version of their client (3.0) that included support for DRM so you can copy files to your portable player. The problem is that this client was much more of a resource pig than their previous version (2.0). If you don't care about copying music and just want to be able to listen to it on demand, 3.0 would tie up much more of your system resources than the previous version - for no discernable improvement in audio quality, features, etc. Perhaps the web release is an attempt to begin backing off of the horrid 3.0 release. On first try, the web client ran well under Firefox 1.5 - nice integrated screens, exaplaining exactly how to allow permission for the music client to get loaded, and it seemed to be responsive, well behaved and much less of a resource hog than 3.0.

Rhapsody

[pajor]

Apparently the Rhapsody music application is a XUL app or something. I just went there and installed it like any other firefox plugin.

It plays audio but it sounds like it's got some sampling issue on my system, because everything sounds very slooooww and the pitch is very low.

You can't burn any songs or put stuff on janus devices on linux.

I'm running ubuntu breezy. I wonder how hard it would be to create some kind of ripper. You could always redirect the audio output to a file I suppose, but you'd have to manually add track data and split the stream. None too much fun.

Pretty slick though, if they work out the bugs I might subscribe if i can figure out a way to play stuff in my car.

My take

[jvagner]

First of all, I got it working fine at work on my Win XP laptop + Firefox 1.5.

I can't wait to try this at home, where my only machines are OS X and Linux.

I can live with the web interface, though I wish they didn't rely on a pop-up window for the player.

I'm a little disappointed they didn't use the web launch as an opportunity to include a few of my wishlist features:

• instead of creating playlists, I wish I could just bookmark artists/albums. there are a lot lot lot of albums on rhapsody, and after a while it's a little annoying to have to rely on one's memories to put together a soundtrack for the given moment
• i'm not sure i see a way to use the web interface to download tracks to the local machine. so, i still can't do that on my linux/osx laptop. i can do it on my winxp laptop though, which is still very nice.

i've become a fan of the subscription service because:

• i'm reading a magazine, they reference an artist/album i'm not familiar with, i can go listen to the whole thing right then and right there
• i can live with the subscription service for the more mainstream music i listen to. i'm happy to buy my india/small label music for posterity. there will always be a way to listen to my u2.
• when i feel really random (solo gospel piano), i find scratch my itch instantly
• when i'm listening to online radio and i hear a song i like, i can instantly go listen to the whole album

Re:The only online Music store that does it right

[VoxCombo]

AllOfMp3.com accomplishes this by not paying for their content.

They take advantage of weak Russian IP laws, and thus manage to rip off content owners from other countries.

Although your first four suggestions are quite reasonable, selling major label songs for much less than a dollar just isn't viable - there is too much money spent on marketing and promotion to recoup expenses. Many indie labels could conceivably sell their stuff for less, but surely it would have to be for much more than 5-10 cents.

If ripping people off doesn't bother you, then you may as well just use Kazaa.

Thanks but...

[c9a9t]

We FOSS users already have tons of music choices for free: http://nongnu.org/streamtuner/

"www.rhapsody.com", not "rhapsody.com"

[AlexJeff]

Apparently you need the "www" in front.

U.S. Only

[La Gris]

U.S. Only
We're sorry. We have detected that you are outside of the United States. This service is currently only available to residents within the United States.
        Close Window
©1999-2005 Listen.com, Inc.
A subsidiary of RealNetworks, Inc.

WebCore

[hummassa]

I am under the impression that (almost?) all of the WebCore enhancements over plain KHTML were re-integrated in Konqi 3.5 (which I am using nowadays). Flame on about ACID2 being relevant or not! Woot!!!

only works in 1 country out of about 180?

[phsdv]

U.S. Only

We're sorry. We have detected that you are outside of the United States. This service is currently only available to residents within the United States.

They forgot to target all countries of the world, except for 1.Even with my USA credit card I can not get this services when I have an IP address outside the USA, do I need to say more?

You said the magic words

[Infonaut]

Since it's * Helix-powered * you can count me in!!!

DRM in Linux??

[brunes69]

What is to stop anyone who has a subscription from simply bypassing all DRM at the kernel level with a simple module to record whatever they want?

Re:DRM in Linux??

[joelsanda]

What is to stop anyone who has a subscription from simply bypassing all DRM at the kernel level with a simple module to record whatever they want?

Wouldn't it make everyone's year (at least those not associated with Sony or Rhapsody) if the rootkit installed by Sony's DRM invalidated the Rhapsody DRM?

Not supported?

[murukusu]

I'm running ArchLinux and got following message when I was trying to sign up.

We're sorry but the combination of your operating system and Firefox 1.5 is not currently supported.

I guess that's it then.

I get blank window

[Rick Richardson]

I get blank window, running FC3 amd64.

Firefox 1.0.7 + ALSA

[icydog]

I installed the plugin from their site, and it crashed the browser. Firefox reported Rhapsody as having been installed when I opened it back up, though, so I kept going.

After installing the plugin, I went to the Rhapsody site to try to sign up. So I clicked the "Sign Up" button, which immediately lowered my system's volume to about half its original level (I was listening to music on amaroK).

Needless to say, I didn't sign up. Why should this stupid plugin mess with my volume settings?

Help?

[Trip Ericson]

Okay, I see a few comments about this, maybe someone can actually HELP instead of just insulting.

I'm trying to try this service, but I get this message:

"We're sorry but the combination of your operating system and Firefox 1.5 is not currently supported."

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051111 Firefox/1.5 - Build ID: 2005111116

Fedora Core 4 (2.6.11-1.1369_FC4).

Any ideas? I already have Real Player 10 installed...

U.S. Only !

[smoker2]

When I tried to play a track, I got the following -

U.S. Only
We're sorry. We have detected that you are outside of the United States. This service is currently only available to residents within the United States.

Pity, as I am running FF 1.5 on FC3, and it would have been a nice test. The Realplayer plugin has always worked fine in firefox, so I was hoping it would be ok.

Behold the future

[Urusai]

It's by subscription only. Sign up now and we'll waive our mandatory legal fees and court costs for the first month!

Not too good, so far

[GedLandsEnd]

I figued I'd give it a try, even if I am at work.

I loaded up www.rhapsody.com - which is the web version (as opposed to rhapsody.com, which isn't... what the?).

I'm using Win2k and Firefox 1.0.7... the sign-in link opens a pop-up which wants to install a Firefox extension. Install, done - then it disappeared. Whedditgo?

It doesn't stay installed as an extension, but installs an .msi package into Windows. Which for no rational reason I'm not as comfortable with as an XUL app. I didn't try it on my Debian box yet to see what it'll do for Linux. Hopefully the .msi didn't have a rootkit. /joke

So I attempt to log in using the rhapsody.com account I tried to set up for this... nothing - must be a different DB. Okay, I sign up for a www.rhapsody.com account - it asks me for email, zip code, year of birth, and gender. The sign up completes, and then it asks me to login using my user ID.

But, what user id? It didn't ask for one or offer one, and my email doesn't work as the user id.

I followed some links to reset my password. Waited for the email, reset my password, still no idea what my user ID is supposed to be.

C'mon Real.

I guess it *is* beta. :(

Re:Not too good, so far

[GedLandsEnd]

Nah, it's a pretty plain setup. It installed as an XPI but seemed to be a wrapper for an MSI package.

Firefox install log:

http://forms.real.com/real/player/download.html?f= windows/mrkt/rhapx/RhapsodyPlayerEngine_Inst_Win.x pi -- 2005-12-05 13:22:39
 
    ** Begin installation of Rhapsody Player Engine version 1.0.0.487
    Rhapsody Player Engine (version 1.0.0.487)
 
    [1/2] Installing: C:\DOCUME~1\gedlandsend\LOCALS~1\TEMP\RhapsodyPlay erEngine_Inst_Win.msi
    [2/2] Executing: C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\msiexec.exe with argument: /i C:\DOCUME~1\gedlandsend\LOCALS~1\TEMP\RhapsodyPlay erEngine_Inst_Win.msi /q
    ** Installation was successful.
 
    Install completed successfully -- 2005-12-05 13:22:40

Re:Not too good, so far

[osssmkatz]

Your user ID is your e-mail address.

UA Spoofed to 1.0.7 Helped

[Trip Ericson]

Spoofing the User Agent to say 1.0.7 instead of 1.5 made it offer the xpi, and though it says the install was successful, it doesn't actually work...

Yeah, BY DOING IT ILLEGALLY

[SMS_Design]

I'm really happy for you having found a site that offers the albums for an affordable download, but this really isn't so much a music service as a pay-per-piracy download site. You would be just as legal on eMule or bittorrent.

Pandora already works on Linux

[sabre86]

... using Flash. And its a subscription music service, and a pretty good one too. though you can't exactly pick which songs you listen, too. http://www.pandora.com/

Too bad

[rm69990]

Too bad...I was actually kind of interested in this, but since I live in Canada I can't use it. Is there any way to spoof it so they think I live in the US?

Re:Too bad

[mmarshall]

Well, I'm in Chile and it works fine. My guess is that it looks at the user agent, instead of the IP. Just change your user agent locale to en-US and see if it works. (Do this in firefox by going to 'about:config' and filtering for 'useragent.locale')

Re:The only online Music store that does it right

[mgpeter]

there is too much money spent on marketing and promotion to recoup expenses

Please give me a freakin break - they have money coming in from everywhere, it is almost as if you hum one of their songs you must pay them.

Anyway, $1 a song is extrememly too much money for a digital file - they do not pay for anything physical, and the price for servers/bandwidth is minimal. If the RIAA was serious about an online store I would say a good price point would be about a quarter per 5MB song, this would translate to over $3 for most albums, more than enough to recoup ANY of their costs (maybe even give over half of it to the artists too).

And as for their marketing, please - if you run a non-RIAA owned radio station you must PAY to play a song - even though you are in fact marketing their crap.

I have NO sympathy for the RIAA/MPAA/Whatever - they are ripping the American People off and are taking away our liberties while they do it. Please mod me down, I have karma to spare....

Fix for Linux/Firefox v1.5 in the works

[kforeman]

There is currently a known issue restricting the functionality of the Rhapsody Player Engine Plug-in on Linux with version 1.5 of Firefox. Version 1.0.7 should work fine.

This problem was introduced when Firefox v1.5 went gold leaving Real little time to fix the issue prior to beta release. Real is currently investigating a fix and hopes to have a new plug-in available soon.

Kevin

I Have Found a Workaround in Firefox 1.5/Mozilla

[Trip Ericson]

1. Download the plugin here, and SAVE TO YOUR HARD DRIVE: http://forms.real.com/real/player/download.html?f= unix/rhapx/RhapsodyPlayerEngine_Inst_Linux.xpi

2. Open it with Ark or something and copy nprhapengine.so to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/

3. Restart Firefox.

4. Spoof Firefox 1.5's UA with User Agent Switcher extension to be Firefox 1.0.7 instead:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051111 Firefox/1.0.7

5. Use Rhapsody.

I have used this method to make it work in Mozilla 1.7.2, I don't see why it wouldn't work in Firefox.

Refresh your browser's cache to enjoy the new site

[kforeman]

http://www.rhapsody.com/

If you are seeing the honda civic ad, then your browser has the old site cached. Refresh and enjoy free and legal music.

US only

[blech]

It might support the Mac and Linux, but if you're outside the United States, you get a popup saying:

We're sorry. We have detected that you are outside of the United States. This service is currently only available to residents within the United States.

Oh well. I suppose supporting less than 10% of the world's population is good enough.

Re:The only online Music store that does it right

[VoxCombo]

what are you basing your numbers on? are you just picking something from the sky? When you say $3 per album is enough to recoup costs, do you have any idea how much it costs to produce and market a major label release?
Please.....you're just like every other buffoon who rails on and on against the record industry because you know EVERYTHING about how it works and the sleazy things they do.

The cost savings of digital downloads vs. retail CDs is pretty small - the physical manufacturing of the CD costs less than a buck per CD in most cases, and I doubt distribution costs more than a buck or two per unit.

Secondly, when radio stations play songs the label gets NOTHING. Performance royalties are paid to the owner of the underlying song (the songwriter), and not to the copyright holder of the sound recording (the record label). Most artists contract with a publisher, so the publisher gets a share of the royalties, but this share is never more than 50%, and if teh artist does his own publishing (and many do) he may only have an administration contract in which he only gives as little as 10% to the publisher.

Third, it takes a LOT of marketing dollars to get a song on radio. While many labels use slimy and/or illegal tactics to get their songs on radio, legitimate promotional expenses are also huge. Radio generally doesn't want to play a song unless it is already a hit (the 'ol chicken or egg scenerio) so the labels spend a lot of money building buzz.

THE ONLY MAJOR INCOME STREAM RECORD LABELS HAVE IS:

sales of recordings - that's it!

There are a few minor income streams they have including sync licensing and digital streaming royalties, but these are minor. All the other places you think record labels are sucking your blood you are wrong. Except for the rare contractual exception, record labels don't get a dime from performance royalties (playing or broadcasting the song) or touring. That's why they take a larger cut of album sales - cus that's all there is.

Re:The only online Music store that does it right

[laughingcoyote]

Actually, you'd only be right if they were selling a scarce product. As they are not, it doesn't apply at all.

If you've got ten widgets to sell, and you paid $.10 per widget, plus $5.00 to market them, you must sell each one for at least $.61 in order to make a profit. On the other hand, if you have an unlimited number of widgets (or can make an unlimited number of copies of them), you make a profit whether you sell 10 at $.61, 61 at $.10, or 601 at $.01. This is exactly -why- allofmp3.com is able to turn a profit (and apparently bandwidth is affordable at these prices), and the labels would most certainly turn huge profits from the massive frenzy of downloading which would occur from a similar reduction in their own prices. Also, the lower their prices get, the less likely people will be to turn to free alternatives, or allofmp3.

The problem, however, is exactly as you've illustrated-a lot of MBA's who are clueless, and think that in the age of free-flowing, easily obtainable, easily copied information, that they are selling a widget. In reality, the information -itself- is nearly valueless, due to the fact that it is so easily copied. Artificially inflating its value might work for a little while, but in the end, legislation is an expensive thing to buy-both in terms of the monetary cost and the cost of consumer goodwill. No one likes to hear about a kid or a grandma getting sued, whether they were really doing what they're accused of or not. No one likes DRM, regardless of whether or not they're willing to put up with it.

What they should be looking to sell is a SERVICE. Real has realized this, and is making a good deal of money. Allofmp3 has realized this, and is making a ton of money. (And they're making it legally in their country-why is it that some of the people I see castigating allofmp3 are the same ones who defended Yahoo's actions in China as "just acting in accordance with local law"?) Sell an "all-you-can-eat" download service for, say, $10 a month, with help in finding what you might like based on previous choices, and you'll see millions of people sign up. 10 million sign up? Look at that, you just made $100 million-free money, aside from nominal bandwidth costs. And compared to producing, packaging, and shipping a physical product, bandwidth is extremely cheap, and download costs should reflect this.

Now, don't get me wrong, I don't hold out a whole lot of hope that we'll see such a thing. Or more appropriately, that we'll see it from the current crop of information-as-widget companies. But dinosaurs die out, and currently, they actually seem to die off pretty quickly. Don't be one of them.

Some songs you just don't want to "own"

[robla]

Disclaimer: I'm an ex-Real employee and still own stock. However, no one is paying me to say this.

Subscription music occupies an interesting niche for the way I listen to music. I've got several levels of music:
1. Stuff I need to own: this is the music I can listen to a lot, and not get sick of it quickly. Even when I do get sick of it, I can put it away for a while, come back in 6 months and like it again.
2. Stuff it's nice to own: good tunes that I may or may not get sick of, but I want to be able to listen to wherever I want
3. Stuff I'd never buy (for much), but still have fun listening to: I have a very large collection of vinyl, most of which I picked up in the late 1980s/early 1990s for 99c an album when everyone was moving to CD. I would have /never/ paid full price for a lot of it, but it is fun to be able to pull it out. Still, it's a PITA to deal with vinyl.
4. Novelty items that I listen to once or twice
5. Stuff that I never knew I'd want, but if I could listen to it in the course of the day, I'd buy.

Rhapsody is not a good choice for #1 or #2. However, I've found it great for #3-#5. I've discovered a lot of music that I never would have without Rhapsody, since it really encourages exploration. I can grab my tattered Billboard Top 40 book, and look for old sludgey hits and occassionally have one of those "oh my god...I remember /that/" moments. Generally, those songs are not the type of songs that I then get all uppity about needing to own.

Since I use Linux on my desktop, I've had to use my wife's Windows box to listen to/use Rhapsody, which irritates me, but I'll survive. The bad news is that it doesn't look like there's /quite/ enough there yet for me to switch over to using it primarily on Linux (unless I'm missing something...I need to access my private playlists), but I understand it'll get there.

Rob

Re:The only online Music store that does it right

[TallMatthew]

It's fair to say record labels are concerned with maximizing their profit. For years they were in a really nice position but things changed with the advent of file sharing. Now they're scrambling to find the right way to generate revenue which is somewhat difficult being that their products are available for free to whomever has enough clue to go out and find them. Apple's store, this Rhapsody store, the Napster store ... they've learned that if they adjust the cost of music to a certain price point, people will be less likely to pirate it due to guilt, convenience or what have you. As their bottom line adjusts, so does the allotment of budgets to finding new acts, marketing, etc.

But I could care less.

I want the music I want in the format I want it at the lowest price possible. I don't sit around worrying about record labels and their bottom lines because I don't own a record label. Their problems are their own. Unless they adjust their pricing model to where I can get what I want, I'll figure out another way to go. Somehow I think they'll manage.

Insufficient disk space. Error code -235

[Rick Richardson]

Insufficient disk space.  Error code -235.

$ df
Filesystem           1K-blocks      Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol00
                     129724020  57796176  65338200  47% /
/dev/mapper/VolGroup00-LogVol02
                      59476116  44880076  11574832  80% /old
/dev/hda1               101086     70010     25857  74% /boot
none                    512252         0    512252   0% /dev/shm
$

Re:The only online Music store that does it right

[VoxCombo]

if you'd like to discuss the economics of teh situation, you're leaving out a couple of large factors:

1. while allofmp3.com can sell bandwidth for 5-10 cents per song, remember that they have very few fixed costs to overcome, while record labels have very high fixed costs (the cost of making and marketing an album)

2. Demand curves never have a constant slope, and the curve depends on the price-elasticity of the product in question. Unfortunately for your theory, music demand is relatively inelastic, meaning that while reduced prices increase demand a little, it doesn't increase demand enough to justify very low prices.

To illustrate this point: You may often find popular new releases on sale for $5-7 in their first week. Record labels often do this to gain chart position. However, they lose money in this instance to gain chart position, clearly showing that music demand is not elastic enough to lower prices very much.

Re:The only online Music store that does it right

[laughingcoyote]

Your second point is flat wrong, and your first is able to be solved. Let's address them:

Luxury items, such as entertainment, have the -most- elastic demand curves. When the price of gas went up, you didn't see a massive reduction in demand, because so many individuals and businesses are dependent on it. Raise the price of food, and you won't see demand go down significantly, lower it, and it won't go up by a huge amount. On the other hand, cut the price of a music download in half (or offer a flat-rate service), and you will see a huge increase in demand. Raise it, and you will see a large number of people walk away entirely, go to P2P, or simply cut back.

As to the costs of making and marketing an album, yes, they are currently high for massive labels. However, it is becoming cheaper and easier to make and refine music, as general-purpose PC's become able to do so, and that will likely continue. Also, a market served by flat-rate download services would find it far less necessary to have "big-name" bands created, promoted, and advertised, and a large number of "niche" bands, paid basically solely on "commission" based on their popularity, could fill the demand just as nicely without any marketing besides the Long Tail on the website. Given the Long Tail effect, even a single track sold/downloaded is profitable, at any price, and given the opportunity for anyone to make a bit of money at it, even "hobby" bands would be likely to put their stuff up.

Re:The only online Music store that does it right

[VoxCombo]

The record labels' object is to make teh most money possible right? same as any company.........
Don't you think that if they could make more money by lowering prices they would have tried that already? It's a pretty simple thing, and adjusting price is usually one of the first things businesses think about.

Well, as a matter of fact, they have tried it. again and again. As much as you think lowering prices will save the music industry, study after study, experiment after experiment has proven you wrong. Despite you baseless theory backed by no recearch, there is real-world data out there showing that music prices are NOT ELASTIC ENOUGH to justify lowering prices.

Secondly, there will always be a need for high-cost marketing. While you and I may enjoy the process of spending a lot of time looking up indie bands and finding new music, most people don't. While some people are active music consumers, most are passive consumers, and the expensive marketing is necessary to sell to them. If you don't enjoy paying for highly marketed music, there are lots of artists who sell their music independently for much cheaper - even free.

To summarise:
If it was that easy, they would have though of it already
they did think of it, and it doesn't work
conclusion: it's not that easy
I rest my case....Goodnight!

If it requires a plugin, why make it browser-based

[argent]

If it requires them to have OS- and CPU- specific software anyway, why bother making it browser-based? That actually decreases the potential user base, because now you have to have the right OS and the right CPU, but the right browser as well.

Yes, yes, you can use common GUI code on all three platforms. But you can do that with any number of other technologies, from scripting languages like Tcl/Tk, through Java, to cross-platform libraries. It seems like a bad move to me.

what is the bit rate for the radio / songs ?

[fea]

I just tried it here using Linux (Ubuntu/Breezy) with Firefox 1.0.7-0ubuntu20. It works fine. However, if I am not getting at least 128 kbps, I will not subscribe. That is my minimum. Trouble is, I get no bit rate shown on their player. How else can I tell ?

Re:what is the bit rate for the radio / songs ?

[nincehelser]

However, if I am not getting at least 128 kbps, I will not subscribe. That is my minimum. Trouble is, I get no bit rate shown on their player. How else can I tell ?

If it sounds good to you, why would you care about the bit rate?

It's been my experience over the last few years that Rhapsody streams music at least at 128kbps. I don't recall anything I've listened to ever being lower than that. Cached music is now typically 160kbps WMA, and I've heard that purchased music comes down at something like 192kbps WMA.

I imagine if you're really interested, you could monitor your network traffic and get a pretty good idea of what they're providing.

I've been a happy Rhapsody subscriber for years. My only complaint is that they don't have a "to go" service for the ipod because of DRM issues with Apple.

Call me crazy, but I like the subscription model.

Re:what is the bit rate for the radio / songs ?

[fea]

no sir, i do not call you crazy at all. I like it also. I have listened to many internet radio stations that come and go and some that stay. Mostly found from shoutcast. some are pretty good. I am very pleased that real finally figured out that linux users also listen to the internet. and i can tell the difference between 128 and 64, but not 160 and 128, so I am happy with 128. I also purchase songs on the net at a minimum of 192. i am also a comcast subscriber, and I was a little displeased that the rhapsody change has not yet found it's way over to comcast's service which appears to offer a few more free radio stations. i guess i will take the plunge for a while.

Re:The only online Music store that does it right

[laughingcoyote]

Despite you (sic) baseless theory backed by no recearch, (sic) there is real-world data out there showing that music prices are NOT ELASTIC ENOUGH to justify lowering prices.

"Backed by no research"? I challenge you to find me -any- study on price elasticity that does not back my claim-luxury items are the most price-elastic commodity. It's been researched exhaustively, and that is the overwhelming (and relatively unsurprising) conclusion.

Now, as to your claims that my ideas have been tried-those are baseless. They never have been tried. I'll take your word for it that some new-release CD has been released at $5 (I've never seen it, the only CD's I've seen at that price point are either used or old, obscure bands that 3 people might like), but as far as I've seen, CD's hover between $15 and $20, and have -never- deviated from that. And even if a bit of tinkering's been done, that shows nothing that a revolutionary change would not work-the two do not equate. My ideas have never -been- tried. Debate them if you'd like, but drop the pretense that they've been tried and failed, or put up some evidence that they have.

Far from wild price experimentation, the record labels were convicted of illegal price fixing. That is proven fact, public record. Now offer up something of substance, or don't be so quick to sling "baseless" around.

Emusic

[so1omon]

Funny, I was using Emusic on a Macintosh years ago. They have always been subscription music service. Oh yeah, except you actually get to keep the songs after you cancel.

Rhapsody is the first music RENTAL service available for the Macintosh.

AudioHijack Pro is your friend

[bursch-X]

That is, if you have a Mac.

http://www.rogueamoeba.com/audiohijackpro/

Keyword: Subtle

[hug_the_penguin]

Yes, but opera ads don't piss you off, they're unintrusive and if you wanted rid of them, you could pay a little fee to get rid of them which i'd be happy to do given my love of the opera browser (said hypocritically from epiphany browser). An overbearing annoying ad and complete lack of functionality won't make me upgrade to realplayer pro for sure, just desist using realplayer.

Re:Keyword: Subtle

[larry bagina]

Opera is now totally free, no ads. Google gave them a chunk of cash to be the default search engine. (They also gave firefox/mozilla some scratch too).

cellphones

[hug_the_penguin]

Yes, and that's not the only reason opera are doing it either. Most of their money comes from the cellphone market, they have practically a monopoly of the cellphone browser market (which i don't see as a bad thing given the quality of their browser). By spreading more of opera, more people know about it, how long before a managing exec of a cellphone firm that hasn't used it decides to buy an opera licence for their new batch of cellphones?