Real's Rhapsody Launches DRM-Free MP3 Store (RNWK)

Dan Frommer | June 30, 2008 12:01 AM

Rhapsody is set to take on Apple's (AAPL) iTunes, Amazon's (AMZN) MP3 store, and Napster (NAPS) with a new, long-awaited DRM-free music store, launching today. The RealNetworks (RNWK) - MTV joint venture has deals with all four major record labels (and several indie labels) to sell more than 5 million DRM-free MP3s via the new store. Its unique feature: Instead of 30-second samples, you can listen to full-length songs before you buy them.

Rhapsody will also power full-length music sampling (up to 25 songs per person, per month) and MP3 sales for iLike (including apps on Facebook, MySpace, etc.), Yahoo (YHOO), MTV Networks (VIAB), and Verizon Wireless.

Rhapsody is pushing this as a game-changer, but the reality is that they're now the third retailer, following Amazon and Napster, to offer all-MP3 downloads. And neither of those two competitors seem to have gained ground on iTunes, which only offers DRM-free tracks from one major -- EMI.

And in any event, selling individual songs for download is a low-to-no-margin business. Rhapsody's core business remains one that has yet to take off: Monthly, all-you-can-eat subscription plans. The move to DRM-free is important for Rhapsody, but only because it helps it stay afloat -- if it didn't have it when its competitors did, it'd be dead in the water. Next trick: trying to gain some momentum.

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16 Comments

SKY LARK said:

Jun. 30, 8:50 AM

Dan said "...And neither of those two competitors seem to have gained ground on iTunes, which only offers MP3s from one major -- EMI."

Woah, steady on Tiger Dan! ;) MP3s are soooo yesterday ...

According to Wikipedia -

"As of 29 May 2007 tracks on the EMI label have been made available in a DRM-less format called iTunes Plus. These files are unprotected and are encoded in the AAC format at 256 kilobits per second, twice the bitrate of standard tracks bought through the service."
-
"Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) is a standardized, lossy compression and encoding scheme for digital audio. Designed to be the successor of the MP3 format, AAC generally achieves better sound quality than MP3 at many bit rates."

"AAC has been standardized by ISO and IEC, as part of the MPEG-2 & MPEG-4 specifications. The MPEG-2 standard contains several audio coding methods, including the MP3 coding scheme. AAC is able to include 48 full-bandwidth (up to 96 kHz) audio channels in one stream plus 15 low frequency enhancement (LFE, limited to 120 Hz) channels and up to 15 data streams. AAC is able to achieve indistinguishable audio quality at data rates of 320 kbit/s (64kbit/s/channel) for five channels. The quality is close to CD also at 96 kbit/s (48kbit/s/channel) for stereo.

AAC's best known use is as the default audio format of Apple's iPhone, iPod, iTunes, and the format used for all iTunes Store audio (with extensions for proprietary digital rights management).

AAC is also the standard audio format for Sony’s PlayStation 3, Nintendo's Wii (with the Photo Channel 1.1 update installed for Wii consoles purchased before late 2007) and the MPEG-4 video standard. HE-AAC is part of digital radio standards like DAB+ and Digital Radio Mondiale.

AAC was developed with the cooperation and contributions of companies including Fraunhofer IIS, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Dolby and Nokia, and was officially declared an international standard by the Moving Pictures Experts Group in April 1997."

Dan Frommer (URL) said:

Jun. 30, 9:15 AM

Thanks, knew that -- fixing.

Justin said:

Jun. 30, 8:26 PM

I have a Rhapsody subscription and I must say that it sure beats paying a dollar a song on I Tunes. Anyone who uses Rhapsody will not be able to go back to I Tunes.

Steve said:

Jul. 01, 11:05 AM

Unless Rhapsody and its hardware compliant suppliers get pay attention to service and reliability, the promising RhapsodyToGo streaming subscription services will fail.

This would be a shame as for $14.99 a month, plus the cost of the player you can load any number of songs without extra charge.

The drawback is less Rhapsody per se than the interaction between Rhapsody and the player. I originally tried an iRiver iClix - beautiful player, terrific sound but it basically would not work. And iRiver has no support.

I returned the iClix for a ScanDisk Sensa which after upgrading Rhapsody, upgrading the firmware on the player and deleting the MS DRM file on the PC, it worked.

I cannot but think that iPod and iTunes is a much more satisfactory experience.

Such a shame as this ToGo is an innovatory approach which without better execution will not succeed.

Tasha said:

Jul. 01, 1:16 PM

The real reason that services like Rhapsody will fail is simply that it's harder to use. I spent way too much time trying to figure out how to sign up so I could sample their music selection.

After I finally found the signup page and did so. I went to look at the pages and I have to say that it's quite ugly and again hard to use. They have pop and rock all mixed together, so what is on the front page for the genre is full of stuff that I don't care about. The samples are taken from the front of the song so are full of lead in, which doesn't give me an idea of what the song sounds like. Basically it's a very bad copy of the far superior iTunes Music store.

I think that Rhapsody was made by people who wanted to "cash in", while iTMS is made by people who actually care about music and fans.

Hopefully the record companies will allow Apple to sell more tracks with no DRM. Because the other services are not worth my time.

Tasha

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Sep. 12, 4:55 AM

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amina (URL) said:

Sep. 24, 10:56 AM