Today, RealNetworks launched a "Freedom Of Choice" campaign. With the slogan "Half the price of Apple" and an open lock in the shape of an iPod, they're going directly against the american market leader in legal music downloads, Apple's iTunes music store, emphasizing that Real's new Harmony Technology won't "lock in" users. For a limited time, Real will offer each song in their online Music Store for 49 cents, albums are available for $4.99.

Press Release

http://www.real.com/music

Solid proof that competition is good for the customer's wallet. Nice! (Even if it is a limited time offer)

Good luck Real!

But the question is: does hymn work on Real's m4p's?

How can they claim that it doesn't lock you in if every track has DRM on it? You still need to authorize with RealNetworks in order to be allowed to play stuff.

Here's a hint for them: AAC without DRM plays anywhere and doesn't lock you in at all!

But besides that, it's from RealNetworks. 'Nuff said.

Don't know exactly about this, Real's DRM might different (and should be stronger than Fairplay) from Apple's.

But if Harmony supports transfer songs to iPod in Apple's DRM. I think we can copy the DRMed song from iPod and use hymn on it.

Karl_lillevold has given already some answers about that : here.

There is a good deal of hypocrisy in their "FreedomOfChoice" slogans. Their definition of freedom of choice appears to be limited to the Windows Operating System. No Thanks!

Sean

Umm.. they have Mac and Linux versions of RealPlayer 10 available. I don't think they have Harmony tech ported to those platforms yet, but hey, this is new stuff. Give them some time. I mean, I didn't much complain about Apple not bringing iTunes to the Windows platform before they did so.


I don't see any real good answers to that question in there.

The short answer is yes, it can be done once you've transferred the songs to the iPod. The long answer is that it doesn't work by default and takes munging. Expect somebody to remedy the situation by patching Hymn eventually.

Haha, not to start a flamewar or troll or go too far OT, but I just think it's quite humorous that I recently found a 2.4 Ghz P4 Dell Desktop and FPD right along the street thrown out with a bunch of furniture, nothing physically wrong with the outside of either and they could have only been there a couple hours at most since I pass by where I found them when I walk my dogs. To my surprise it actually booted up when I got it home but then I noticed that the CPU was constantly @ 100% so I figured there must be something physically wrong, which is why the guy must have thrown it away...right until I killed RealSched.exe which made everything return to normal and now, even though its a Dell, it works like a charm.

So, with that said, before you go and curse the company, realize they can do some good...I'm proof as I have a new pc to tinker with because of them so I say thanks Real!

I just think it is hypocritical that Real goes to great lengths with an advertising campaign focusing on "Choice" when the only choice they offer is for Windows iPod users. My gosh, they even create a website of the same name. If you are going to talk the talk, you might want to walk the walk.

Sean

I'm highly suspicious of the whole thing.

First of all I expect Apple will retaliate by breaking support for Real's FairPlay hack in iPods fairly quickly, and secondly I'm no big fan of Real and thier tactics anyway. RealPlayer in it's various guises is incredibly invasive, and I expect more of the same from "harmony"

On a similar note slashdot is reporting a grass-roots backlash to it, but I expect it's probably astroturfing...

OMG! Ur absolutely right. While at it, they should have given "choice" of choosing other formats than their AAC. They should also have given "choice" of dowloading other bitrates. And while at it, go ahead and give "choice" of buying lossless tracks. And why not "choice" to buy musics unDRMd? I demand "choice" to buy musics for 1 cent too...



Get real, man. The choice is about music stores, it's not about operating systems or anything like that. One could extrapolate your whining and demand choice of almost anything.

Lovely.. Now I'm waiting for the word to be spread that the backlash is astroturfing, and thus we'[ll see a backlash to the backlash.

http://news.com.com/Apple+zealots+slam+Rea..._3-5314753.html



That's just great

[OT]
OMG these must be the two longest sentences I've read in a long long time.
[/OT]

The Apple of forbidden knowledge

Sigh. Of all the zombies out there, the worst of them are imo without doubt mac zealots. OSS zealots are dandylions (puffable :-) compared

Might be. But OSS zealots are much more numerous and vocal. Therefore, they can be much more annoying.



Edit: On the amusing topic of Apple zealotry:
http://www.misterbg.org/AppleProductCycle/

A delightful article.

Yes, $0.49 downloads are good for some consumers. Yes, a limited "freedom of choice" is also good for some.

But to Real, "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.."

The business aspect is that Real has been operating at a loss for three years. Technical, quality, moral and legal issue aside, Real's business plan has been a failure.

Real cannot survive on its products' own merits, and has to desperately turn to parasitic behavior, invading a healthy host (iPod) for an attempt at survival.

And if Real is losing money on the $.49 downloads, this is starting to look like a homicide/suicide kamikaze attack on Apple. Try to bring someone else down (your favorite enemy) while you are going down in flames....

Incidentally, I've read that the end-user agreement for Harmony-purchased songs in essence relieves Real of any liability if the songs do not play on the iPod in the future. Has anyone that read the EUA shed light on this?

Frank

Press release:
RealNetworks Celebrates Bringing Harmony to Music Fans - Sells More than 1 Million Songs in a Week

Random thoughts and musings

Linux users don't put up with Real's atrocious players. The Linux players are actually good citizens, and just sit there until you call them up. No invasiveness whatsoever.

Real wanted an alliance with Apple, but in reality, they wanted to profit off Apple's brand. They know that ipods are the in thing, and they do not bring anything to the table. At most, they cannibalize Apple's market share of songs sold on Ipod hardware, which is what they are targetting with cracking Fairplay. I expect them to be crushed anyway.

I like that they are helping finance some Open Source stuff. They are financing [partly] vorbis and theora development.

I still can't find it within myself to forgive them for the atrocities they commited with RealOne. I used to think real Jukebox was pretty ok, but they really went out to annoy with RealOne.

If I was Jobs, I would not give them time of day as well. They are now being parasitic. And cracking fairplay was very childish.

If Real is losing money on each 49-cent sale due to royalty payments, then the more songs it sells at that price, the more money it loses...

It also looks like they are starting to batten down the hatches...
http://real.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/real.cfg/...featuredDevices

Real says "It is also recommended that you not start iTunes with your iPod connected to your PC because Apple may automatically install new software on your iPod that could prevent it from being able to play songs you may have already purchased from the RealPlayer Music Store."

So much for software upgrades...

Frank

Real is a joke, just a parasite feeding off of the iPod popularity. They will die a slow agonizing death. They have nothing anyone wants. Selling at $0.49 will only bleed them faster. I say Apple should just ignore them. Don't feed their publicity machine. Real's Freedom of Choice website reads like a little propaganda machine. It's hilarious to read the comments, the majority of which don't like Real.

Sean

How are Real parasites? It is like saying if you buy a car then you have to replace the eventually worn tyres with the same original brand (which are expensive) and all the other cheaper brands are parasites...

Anything that takes away a consumers 'freedom' should not be defended by the consumers, it is really sad, just like people jumping up saying that DVD Region encoding is a good thing, it is like people saying replacement ink for printers, these microchips that stop the 3rd party brand is right.

The PC (if you don't have a MAC) you are using probably is not an IBM, that is because compaq reverse engineered the bios, otherwise you would be stuck with IBM $10,000 PCs, Real reverse engineering 'fairplay' is exactly the same, they have not cracked anything, if they cracked fairplay they would be taking fairplay encoded audio and removing the encryption, instead they take un-encrypted audio and encrypts it, hardly cracking it...

Here's a few definitions of "parasite":

"Parasite. An organism that lives on or in an organism of a different species (the host) and derives nutrients at the expense of the host"
from http://www.science.org.au/nova/011/011glo.htm

and
"leech, parasite, sponge, sponger -- a follower who hangs around a host (without benefit to the host) in hope of gain or advantage.
from http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/we...1&word=parasite

The above sure sounds like what Real is doing to Apple with Harmony on the iPod...

Frank

So if I understand your thinking, I am committing leechlike acts if I play CDs from other recording companies on my Sony CD player.

Sounds like Apple is just pulling something like the DIVX fiasco. Let the buyer beware of a company that limits what music you can play on the device you BOUGHT.

I think the point a lot of people are trying to get across here is no, in fact, it doesn't sound like that at all. Real's Harmony software supports several dozen other portable digital music players as well, not just the iPod. Will they take customers away from the iTunes Music Store? Sure. But that's not parasitic behavior, that's competition.

You seem to be treating the music store and the iPod player as one whole entity, when it's not. By supporting the iPod, Real is supporting another player device with their software. But that is all they are doing. They're competing with iTMS, and supporting the iPod. Two entirely separate things. Heck, they were competing with iTMS *before* they supported the iPod. Now because they support the iPod, suddenly they're a parasite? Makes no sense.

Actually, that's a very bad analogy. Your iPod is as open as your CD player; you're free to play any standards compliant MP3 or AAC file you may have acquired. This article says it much better than I could ever do.

However, if you want to use DRM'd music, your level of choice will be restricted somehow. This is the nature of DRM; it exists to ensure that you follow guidelines set by someone else, and they are enforced by the creator of the playback unit. No matter what DRM system you use, as long as you do not bypass the encryption, you do not control your music. Each service puts one entity in control, and offer certain options:

• Use iTunes & FairPlay, Apple is in control.
• Use Real & Harmony, Real is in control.
• Use Napster & WMA, Microsoft is in control.
• Use Sony Connect, Sony is in control.

• Apple will allow you to choose Mac OS X or Windows, as long as you use iTunes or QuickTime for decoding.
• Real will allow you to choose between several hardware players, as long as you use RealPlayer for playback.
• Microsoft will allow you to use any compatible portable, and any compatible player, as long as you use a Windows PC and the Windows APIs.
• Sony will allow you to use their products.

If you want to use DRM, pick the entity whom you trust the most or offers the options best for you. If you don't like to relinquish control, don't use DRM. Claiming one service offers "choice" whilst another does not is nonsense. The entire idea of DRM is that the user trades control for convenience.

Freedom of Choice? Their player software is like a virus! Last time I installed it, it 'infected' my whole system and kept spamming me, even when I didn't use it. No thanks.

This is why I prefer to purchase my CDs. I get all the freedom I want.

Thanks for your feedback. I have lost count how many variations of this complaint has been phrased. It's getting a little old though. Please see this post on doom9. RealPlayer has cleaned up, and there is no need to have anything pop up or run in the background. It is possible to install it, try it (get a couple of 49c songs while it lasts), and forget about it until you perhaps might need it again.

It was really interesting to read a recent review of WMP10, from Paul Thurrots SuperSite for Windows. Not everyone will of course agree, but it has a lot of good things to say about RealPlayer 10.5! (features, UI, iPod support) http://www.winsupersite.com/reviews/wmp10.asp

(Personally I prefer minimalistic players, so I am mostly using Media Player Classic for video playback, and foobar2000 for PC audio playback. But I do have RealPlayer on all my computers, with no ill side effects, and it works great to load up my iPod Mini with some cheap songs in high quality 192 kbps AAC)