RealNetworks Slashes Song Prices

[obiwan]

I've just been reading some of the comments on that (now pulled) petition. - That's the funniest thing I've seen in ages! - I think REAL know they're going down, but they just wanted to do it in style...

 

[Localcelebrity]

How can RealNetworks afford to charge so little for song downloads? Surely they're taking a loss on this marketing promotion? Also, there's the Apple factor - how will Apple react to this news (both in their music store and regarding FairPlay itself)? I don't see how this will help Real, unless it means that their customer count more than doubles because of it - which I think is unlikely.

guy's he's right, remember how apple only gets to keep about 10 cents on every song, i don't think real got any better of a deal than apple did, they have to be doing this at a loss and banking on getting people hooked on their system, so all of these sales are going to be at a loss

so help kill real, download as much music as you can while the offer exists and never buy from them again, burn all the stuff to disc, re-import it into itunes and leave real to foot the other 49 cents of the bill on every song.

Cheap music for us, money for the record industry and a huge loss for real if we do this right.

 

[matthew24]

I signed, Apple is wrong in this, Real is right.

You may think about Real anyway you like but:

Apple is abusing it's market position and the blind support of many Apple followers is just shameful. The only reason Apple is still alive is because of open standards. If IBM (stop producing PowerPC as a concurrent) and M$ (MSOffice) will (or would have) tread Apple in the same way as Apple treads Real, Apple will soon be history.

Until recently I was somewhat proud to be a member of the Mac community, I did think that we had higher standards than the 'dark' side. I am painfully mistaken.

Moderator: Please remove my account and all my posts from this board.

 

[SandyL]

FairPlay: Another Anticompetitive Use of DRM

On a panel a few weeks ago, I asked the head lawyer for Apple's iTunes Music Store whether Apple would, if it could, drop the FairPlay DRM from tracks purchased at the Music Store. He said "no." I was puzzled, because I assumed that the DRM obligation was imposed by the major labels on a grudging Apple.

 

[Superhob]

I hate cnet!

In case no one saw this:

Cnet's daily buzz:
_________________________________________________________________
"Real, Apple, low prices--oh, my!
Creating technology that cracks iPod encryption and makes RealNetworks' downloadable music compatible with the player: superexpensive. Selling downloadable songs for 49 cents and albums at half price: big-time money loser. Marketing the Harmony technology and the cheap songs: again, mucho moolah. Watching Apple go absolutely ballistic? Priceless."
_________________________________________________________________
Why are there so many apple haters out there? Is it pure jealousy or what...

By the way, I hate real too and I've made it a point to always uninstall their software on any PC I work on.

 

[munkle]

I've already posted this in another thread, so please forgive the double posting but after reading all the comments I just wanted to say the same again

Harmony is not going to help sell more iPods. Behind all the pro choice talk Harmony is simply an attempt to sell more songs from Real to iPod users. There's nothing wrong with this of course, it's just common sense for Real to want to do this.

What is objectionable is their 'choice for the consumer' campaign, when all Real is trying to do is to lock users into their proprietary format instead of Apple's proprietary format. The fact that Harmony is only compatible with Windows is just too much irony for me too handle!

The iPod gives you a lot of freedom of choice, more so than most players, just not when it comes to rival DRM platforms. But what makes the iPod such a great music player is the package of iTunes, iTunes Music Store, Airport Express etc, that comes with the iPod. It's this close quality control which makes the iPod a superior user experience. Apple has shown that it is willing to collabrate with partners, as demonstrated with the HP deal, but only with companies that are going to bring something to the table, Real obviously do not fall into this category.

The only company to gain from Reals' Harmony is Real. In fact iPod users will suffer if they use Harmony, as they will not be able to continue using iTunes to control all their music.

But there is a lot at stake here - namely DRM Music. Whilst Apple might be making money from the sale of iPods rather than purchases from the iTunes Music Store currently in the future it's going to be hard to maintain the same level of success and profit margins. The download music industry on the otherhand is in very early stages and is likely to become a huge industry in the future. At the moment Apple are poised to become the market leader and industry standard. There's a lot more at stake than just what songs will play on the iPod.

 

[shamino]

yes, but apple is in the position to make their DRM the only DRM that matters.

FairPlay achieved this position, not because of anything special about iTunes, the iPod or AAC. They got there by having the most liberal DRM policy in the industry - 3 (later 5) computers, unlimited CD burns (10, later 7 per playlist) and unlimited iPods.

Everybody else, including Real, is so restrictive that nobody wants to touch it. They sport "features" like rental-only (stop paying your monthly bill and everything stops playing), tied to only one computer (with no ability to transfer the license when you buy new equipment), very limited CD burning (often none, or less than 5 burns total, etc.

In comparison, RealRhapsody is charging you a $10/mo subscription fee. Stop paying and your songs all stop working. The songs don't work with iTunes, or any player other than Real's (even though they have a hack to let them be loaded into an iPod.) Their web site doesn't say what other DRM constraints are imposed by their player, but I'm certain they're just as restrictive as Napster's and everybody else's.

Opening up FairPlay won't help Real one iota, because Real is still imposing insanely-stupid license terms on their music. iTMS is suceeding because of its liberal DRM, not because it's the only iPod-compatible DRM.

If Apple started imposing draconian DRM, the way everybody else does, iTMS would lose all of its customers. And by that same token, if Real, or any of the others would start selling music with DRM terms as liberal as Apple's, you would find that they'd start selling as much music as Apple - which may even boost the sales of portable players.

But they're not doing this, and they probably never will, so they'll remain a pointless bit-player in the market. No amount of hacking the iPod and making threatening noises to the press is going to make the public buy something they don't want.

 

[mohaukachi]

A COPY OF THE REAL NETWORK'S AD

i have access to a pdf of the upcoming ad. i need someone to host it for me. please email me ONLY if you can host the ad to shed more light on this story.
mohaukachi@hotmail.com

kp

 

[obiwan]

Apple is abusing it's market position and the blind support of many Apple followers is just shameful. The only reason Apple is still alive is because of open standards. If IBM (stop producing PowerPC as a concurrent) and M$ (MSOffice) will (or would have) tread Apple in the same way as Apple treads Real, Apple will soon be history.:

I don't see how Apple is abusing it's market position - it hasn't done anything wrong. It invented FairPlay so they have the right to license it or not if they so wish. If anything, Apple's market position is where it is with the iPod, because on this occassion they've done everything right. A closed system isn't necessarily all bad - they have created tight integration with the iPod, iTunes and the Music Store which is why they've been so successfull - if they opened it up and let Real and Microsoft get their hands on it, it could mess the whole thing up. Apple create closed products, because they believe they can produce the best possible product this way. Microsoft create closed standards because they want to make more money and stifle the competition - that's the difference. Real just want a slice of Apple's cake, plain and simple.

 

[blybug]

What a pain in the A$$

After much registering, downloading, updating, multiple window spawning, crashing of WindowsXP within Virtual PC, giving of my credit card info to Real (eek!), and slow-as-all-get-out song downloading, I have successfully (oops not yet, Windows just crashed again) downloaded the "free" tryout song "A Texas Sunday - Too Much Joy" from the Real Music store.

Their software is really bizarre...it seems you can access the music store from http://musicstore.real.com like a web page, but then it randomly and abruptly moves you into the RealPlayer application which when updated for Rhapsody becomes a very cluttered and cartoony iTunes ripoff with menus to access the Store, your Library, your Purchased Music, Radio, etc, on the left panel, which show up on the right side window.

So I thought I had downloaded the song from the web page, but it's not showing up in my RealPlayer. Arrgh. OK, I'm going to try to download it from directly within RealPlayer ala iTunes...tells me I already bought it...so where is it?? I'll buy it again...here it comes, again taking forever on my DSL, about 7 minutes for this one 5.6MB song...

waiting...waiting...99%...now it's stuck on the "Confirming Download" step...WindowsXP crashes & restarts again...WindowsXP crashes again upon starting RealPlayer...I've just downloaded the same song from iTunes just on principle. Not that good of a song really.

Finally the song shows up in my RealPlayer!! And WindowsXP crashes again when I try to play it. Restarting Windows...this time I drag the file from My Music folder onto my Mac desktop. Has a .rax extension, and shows up like a TextEdit file. Dragging it into iTunes does nothing. Manually dragging it to a playlist on my iPod in iTunes does nothing. Dragging it into Hymn...oooh oooh - turned it into an m4a on my Desktop...but it isn't really. Does nothing. How about RealPlayer for OS X? File opens, tells me I need to download and install Helix DRM plugin (I do this - who knew this was available for the Mac??)...RealPlayer seems to now recognize the file and dispays the name of the song at the top of the window then tells me this computer (my Mac as opposed to my crashedy-crash Virtual PC) is not authorized, to authorize it sign into my Music Store account...I do this...then finally I'm informed this platform is not supported.

One more try playing it in Windows RealPlayer...crash...

Maybe all the problems are just a Virtual PC thing (though I've found Virtual PC to much more stable in most cases than a real PC), but I'm giving up. After all the only reason I'm doing this is to see how much it sucks, and I've pretty much proven that already...

 

[0 and A ai]

Actually I think the petition shows how pathetic Apple zealots can be.

If this were Apple doing the very same thing to another competitor who had a lock on the market you would all be behind Apple cheering. Another win for the "little guy" as everyone says. It really stings when it's turned around on Apple.

I've used, administered, developed on OSX, BSD, Linux, Solaris, and Windows and have had experience will the zealots of each platform. It's amazing how all of the Apple zealots sound just like the Windows ones you trash all of the time. In the end you are all alike, just behind what each considers a winning solution.

i've never met a windows zealot.

 

[jragosta]

Reply to...

Since Real yanked the petition that allows comments, send your comments to:
admin@freedomofmusicchoice.org

Of course, I'm sure they won't learn anything, but it's still worth telling them how much they're pissing off potential customers.

 

[jragosta]

True, but I believe that 49c is a fairer price than 99c. I don't see why you'd pay the same amount for a lossy-compressed 128k AAC when you can get a full CD for $9.99. Obviously it's connivence, but I purchase CDs when I can and keep itunes for one or two songs I like.

Simply because the people who own it set the price. Apple says that their licensing fees are $0.69 per track. If that's what the people who own the music want to charge, that's the price. Apple charges $0.30 more for technology, marketing, and a (tiny) profit.

If you don't like it, your choices are to not buy the music or make your own.

Real's price is artificially low. They've admitted that they're losing money. There's no way I'd get locked into a technology where everyone knows the price is going to go back up next month. Not to mention the probability that Apple will break harmony and the possibility that Real will go out of business with their stupid stunts.

Why don't they take the money they're losing on this stunt and invest it in coming up with a good product rather than hacking Apple's?

 

[jragosta]

Oh dear. Have you heard something of a contract? It basically assures both parties that they will do whatever they said.

The RIAA could pull out now, but they'd incur huge penalties.

Really? Do you know what the contract says? If not, you can't make that statement.

 

[munkle]

After much registering, downloading, updating, multiple window spawning, crashing of WindowsXP within Virtual PC, giving of my credit card info to Real (eek!), and slow-as-all-get-out song downloading, I have successfully (oops not yet, Windows just crashed again) downloaded the "free" tryout song "A Texas Sunday - Too Much Joy" from the Real Music store...
Maybe all the problems are just a Virtual PC thing (though I've found Virtual PC to much more stable in most cases than a real PC), but I'm giving up. After all the only reason I'm doing this is to see how much it sucks, and I've pretty much proven that already...

That's a scary story! Man I'm glad it wasn't me going through that, thanks for taking one for the team!

 

[jragosta]

Real's procedure is certainly open to criticism but I think the iPod should reflect what Apple has been preaching about for some time now : open standards and better interoperability with others. The bottom line is that the customer doesn't care where the songs come from and what format they are.

The iPod DOES support open standards.

You can use iTunes to rip an industry standard, open standards CD if you want.

Or, you can use open standards MP3 files if you want.

The only thing that's closes is Apple's proprietary, OPTIONAL, AAC format. If you don't like it, don't use it. The iPod is every bit as functional without it.

 

[jragosta]

Real can't possibly make any kind of profit off of this.

If I were Apple, I would let Real break the bank selling all these songs for $0.49 and after a few weeks when Real has lost a ton of $$$, I'd update the iPod to make it not compatible with Real's music and Real's service.

That would be a slap in the face, and might send Real under.

If I were Real, I would update the iPod's software, so you could no longer update your iPod from Apple. (assuming that this is possible)


Only time will tell who will win. heheh....

How about this:

When Apple sells you a song, they immediately buy that song from Real. The record companies get their license fee (from Real) and Apple saves $0.20 per song.

At a million songs per week, that would cost Real some real money.

 

[shamino]

The only thing that's closes is Apple's proprietary, OPTIONAL, AAC format. If you don't like it, don't use it. The iPod is every bit as functional without it.

AAC is not proprietary. It's part of the MPEG-4 spec. Anybody who wants a license for it can get one. There are non-Apple products that support AAC, including some portable players (by Panasonic, if you're interested.)

Apple's FairPlay DRM wrapper around AAC is what's proprietary.

Non-DRM AAC (like what you get when you rip a CD in iTunes) can be played on third-party devices without any problem. And Apple's software (iTunes and iPod) have no problem playing non-DRM AAC files produced by third-party products.

 

[Loge]

FairPlay achieved this position, not because of anything special about iTunes, the iPod or AAC. They got there by having the most liberal DRM policy in the industry - 3 (later 5) computers, unlimited CD burns (10, later 7 per playlist) and unlimited iPods.

Exactly. iTMS is the only store I've seen that presents the DRM as a positive right there on the Apple web site - "Generous Personal Use Rights". Every other store seems to try to hide it in the small print. This is important, as the key to successful sales of online content is to convince consumers that they have bought something of value.

 

[whooleytoo]

Oh dear. Have you heard something of a contract? It basically assures both parties that they will do whatever they said.

The RIAA could pull out now, but they'd incur huge penalties.

As far as I can recall, it's a 3 year deal. If the RIAA think they can do better with a more open digital music market, I presume they can pull the plug at that stage (April 2006).

 

[crookedcharlie]

Just a few thoughts off of the top of my head...

Cool, Real is interested in open standards now. Awesome. I assume they'll not stop suing small shareware makers who create programs to pickup and record Real .rm streams. In fact, maybe Apple should implement .rm streaming into the next version of Quicktime. I mean, Real should really open that format up. Who cares if they want to or not. Competition is good! Let's see if we can't find a way for Quicktime to pick up Real streams from "Gold sites" without paying! After all, Real is the CHAMPION OF CHOICE!!!

I honestly don't think anyone should care about Harmony, but I also think that anyone who complains after the first ipod update cripples it is a fool. Apple has said that they can't be help responsible for this, and Real sure as hell won't take responbility when the tracks stop working. Seriously, don't come crying to us. You know it's going to happen ahead of time, so don't be a fool.

How is the ipod a closed system? Can't people play mp3's on it? Why isn't real going after Sony's new player? Theirs is a completely closed system, and yet Real doesn't want a piece of that pie. Odd...

I will never, EVER trust a company that offers a sale when they first open. Call me what you will, but that is what DRUG DEALERS DO! "First one's free, kid..."

 

[jragosta]

What a shame.

You may think about Real anyway you like but:

Apple is abusing it's market position and the blind support of many Apple followers is just shameful. The only reason Apple is still alive is because of open standards. If IBM (stop producing PowerPC as a concurrent) and M$ (MSOffice) will (or would have) tread Apple in the same way as Apple treads Real, Apple will soon be history.

Until recently I was somewhat proud to be a member of the Mac community, I did think that we had higher standards than the 'dark' side. I am painfully mistaken.

Moderator: Please remove my account and all my posts from this board.

Sure. What a terrible shame.

Apple develops a superior product and it becomes a smash success. They object to some worthless, crapware company stealing their technology and marketing a product that disables Apple's own superior product.

How evil for Apple to want to benefit from their own products.....

 

[SilvorX]

someone needs to send spam to scott sutherland (the admin of freedomofmusicchoice.org)
admin@freedomofmusicchoice.org

 

[jragosta]

i've never met a windows zealot.

Then you haven't opened your eyes.

There are millions of people out there campaigning for Apple to be squashed.

Unfortunately, many of them are MIS managers.

 

[outerspaceapple]

I say... SKREW REAL NETWORKS, NOBODY LIKES THEM ANYWAY. WHY DON'T YOU JUST CURL UP AND DIE YOU BAG OF FLAMING DOG ****



so anyways, who's with me?