Posted on 11/10/2003 12:07:03 AM PST by Pro-Bush
RealNetworks in a Venture With Comcast
he 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.
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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."
You forgot the sarcasm tags. I know this is small potatoes as far as programming is concerned, but it's my little niche, and a lucrative little sideline.
They got quite a black eye some time back because of all the firewall traffic some of their apps generate "calling home", the Real Downloader had a reputation for being spyware (Real or imagined), and their desktop applications director made a LOT of enemies.
Nothing from them is welcome on my machines and network, though everyone else of course is free to do what they want. If I catch a guest putting silverware in their pockets or going through my stuff, they are not invited back, and I feel the same about software.
Haha, well...since WinXP I no longer trust them and want nothing further to do with them. My _genuine_ feelings are not fit to be posted to a family-friendly venue.
For years I cheered them on, because making a product that the Public wants and accepts is a good basis for commercial success. However, when that entity does something hostile to my interests, such as Rights Management(Surveillance) in Win Media Player, plus all the firewall traffic going on without my consent, then I regard it as a personal crime, and they go in the trashbin along with Real Media et al.
It is as if I had a guest in my house, and every time my back was turned, they placed bugs, and loaded their pockets with silverware.
They will not be invited back.
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