Comcast & Real Networks Team Up With Rhapsody

[DudeAsInCool]

RealNetworks in a Venture With Comcast

By JOHN SCHWARTZ • November 10, 2003

The relationship between online music and high-speed Internet access just got a little closer. Comcast Cable, the biggest provider of broadband Internet services, is set to announce today that it will offer the Rhapsody online music service from RealNetworks to its nearly 5 million subscribers

If a large number of Comcast broadband customers become Rhapsody users, it would be an enormous boon to RealNetworks, which has about 250,000 subscribers for its digital music services.

The two companies are starting their partnership by offering all Comcast Internet customers seven days of free access to Rhapsody. The companies will also offer 10 free "burns" of downloaded songs to users who subscribe by the end of the year. The company usually charges 79 cents for each downloaded track.

Rhapsody is not primarily a music download service, like iTunes from Apple Computer. Rhapsody users pay a little less than $10 a month to select songs to be played through their Internet connection. If they want to download a specific song to their computer, they pay extra. The company said that its users listened to an average of more than 100 songs a month. The songs come from a digital library of 30,000 albums of music provided by all five major music companies and more than 200 other labels. The number of songs delivered by the service has been growing rapidly, from 12 million songs on demand in July to 28 million in October, according to Rob Glaser, the chief executive of RealNetworks.

The program is still in its early stages, Mr. Glaser said. It is not being offered as part of Comcast's bundle of services, and Comcast will not handle billing for RealNetworks. Mr. Glaser's company has previously announced similarly "co-branded" versions of its service with Best Buy, Gateway and other broadband companies, including Cablevision Systems' Optimum Online, Time Warner Cable's Road Runner, and Verizon Online. But no single deal has involved anywhere near the size of the Comcast's subscriber base.

Mr. Glaser opened negotiations with record companies for the rights to offer music over the Internet eight years ago. For him, this moment is particularly sweet. Comparing his company to a yeoman rock band, he said, "After eight years on the road, we're an overnight sensation."

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/10/technology/10real.html

[DudeAsInCool]

The online music space is started to get crowded. Any one wanna make any bets on who is gonna win out?

[HolyMoly]

The online music space is started to get crowded. Any one wanna make any bets on who is gonna win out?

The RIAA (grin). Take a good look at the catalogs of these online download services and count the number of non-RIAA-label songs you have access to. Then count the number of songs you have access to that the major labels no long produce for sale (ie., oldies ... especially the ones that didn't top the charts). Hehe, still counting on only one hand?

Seriously, I've not seen any legal online download service realize the "dream" of music consumers - namely, an unlimited selection of songs from all artists (notice I didn't say "labels") willing to submit them - including selections that can no longer be bought in a retail store.

[DudeAsInCool]

Well, its early in the game. If you saw the other article I posted, more selections are coming. Yeah, I think unlimited is the way to go. New Releases could be launched like they do motion picture theatricals... and then platformed out on the internet.