RealNetworks, Inc., the leading creator of digital media services and software, as stated in their press release, today announced Harmony Technology, the world’s first DRM translation system to enable consumers to securely transfer purchased music to every popular secure music device.
Harmony Technology frees consumers from the limitation of being locked into a specific portable device when they buy digital music. Now consumers can build their library of downloads secure in the knowledge that it will play on virtually whatever device they choose.
“Compatibility is key to bringing digital music to the masses,” said Rob Glaser, founder and CEO, RealNetworks, Inc. in the press release. “Before Harmony, consumers buying digital music got locked into a specific kind of portable player. Harmony changes all that. Thanks to Harmony, consumers don’t have to worry about technology when buying music. Now anyone can buy music, move it to their favorite portable device, and it will just work, just like the way DVD and CDs work.”
“Interoperability of devices and jukebox software is one of the biggest challenges for today’s music consumer,” said Thomas Hesse, Chief Strategic Officer and Head of Global Digital Business, BMG in the press release.. “RealNetworks’ Harmony Technology is the first to address this issue by giving the consumer flexibility and choice.”
“EMI’s goal is to allow consumers to access our music on as many legitimate platforms as possible, and seamlessly, across a range of devices. RealNetworks’ Harmony Technology will make it easier for consumers to enjoy their digital music in a truly flexible way,” said Ted Cohen, SVP Digital Development and Distribution, EMI Music in the press release.
“I’m excited about anything that means more flexibility and availability in terms of how people enjoy music. It’s great to see RealNetworks make this step so that people can stop worrying about whether the music they buy will work on their favorite device,” commented Stone Gossard of Pearl Jam in the press release.
“Artists are better served when the customer can focus on the music not technology. You should not need an engineering degree to enjoy music, and RealNetworks’ Harmony Technology offers the simplicity that music fans demand,” said Fred Davis, the founding partner of Davis, Shapiro, Lewit, Montone and Hayes in the press release. Davis Shapiro represents many of today’s most successful artists.
“Technology innovation and an ever-expanding wealth of digital media are profoundly changing how people live life and experience entertainment,” said Kevin M. Corbett, vice president of Intel’s Desktop Platforms Group in the press release. “By taking a standards-based approach in designing the Harmony Technology service, RealNetworks is taking the right first steps to make it easier for consumers to enjoy music on the playback device of their choice. Industry support for standards-based products and services is in concert with Intel’s vision of the emerging digital home where consumers will be able to enjoy music, movies, games, photos, communication and information at any time, anywhere and on any device.”
Harmony technology will be demonstrated for the first time on Tuesday July 27th at the Jupiter PlugIn conference in New York City. Beginning on Tuesday, a beta test version of RealPlayer 10.5, the first consumer product to use Harmony Technology, will be available at http://www.real.com/harmony. Harmony Technology will be available later this year in other music products from RealNetworks including Real’s market-leading Rhapsody subscription service.
With Harmony Technology, RealPlayer Music Store supports more than 70 secure portable media devices, including all 4 generations of the iPod and iPod mini, 14 products from Creative, 14 from Rio, 7 from RCA, 9 from palmOne, 18 from iRiver, and products from Dell, Gateway, and Samsung. Generally speaking, Harmony supports any device that uses the Apple FairPlay DRM, The Microsoft Windows Media Audio DRM, or the RealNetworks Helix DRM, giving RealPlayer Music Store support for more secure devices than any other music store on the Internet.
MacDailyNews Take: “Harmony” must be the name of the anchor that Real is desperately throwing out in a vain attempt to catch the side of the rim as they circle the bowl.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Real cracks Apple’s Fairplay; to sell iPod-compatible songs without Apple’s authorization – July 25, 2004
Apple’s QuickTime vaults into close second in media player market share – June 11, 2004
Spurned by Apple, RealNetworks cozies up to Microsoft for portable music – April 29, 2004
Real CEO Glaser: Steve Jobs’ comments on Real ‘not succeeding’ are ‘ridiculously humorous’ – April 29, 2004
NY Times: Real CEO Glaser was close to having ‘iPod’ before Apple, but let it ‘slip through his fingers’ – April 24, 2004
Apple’s refusal to license Fairplay DRM has nothing to do with past ‘OS Wars’ – April 22, 2004
Real’s CEO Glaser: Apple’s iPod/iTunes combo ‘threatens to turn off consumers’ – April 20, 2004
Jobs to Glaser: go pound sand – April 16, 2004
Real: ‘We don’t understand why Steve Jobs just doesn’t want to open the iPod’ – April 15, 2004
Will Apple’s ‘go it alone’ strategy turn iPod into the next Mac? – April 15, 2004
RealNetworks urges Apple to license Fairplay DRM; wants to form ‘tactical alliance’ in online music biz – April 15, 2004
Real CEO hopes for Apple iPod opening – March 31, 2004
Apple should not let any other online music services work with iPod – March 24, 2004
Real CEO Glaser begs Apple to make iPod play nice with other music services – March 24, 2004
Real CEO Glaser: ‘iTunes is only going to be used for playing songs you bought using the iTunes store’ – January 16, 2004
“RealNetworks, Inc., the leading creator of digital media services and software, “
I think they’re having an identity crisis. They think they’re Apple. LOL
Acckkk!!!!!!!……. Gag……….Hurl…….
They really know how to play their cards. They are going out of their way to make Apple potentially look bad.
BTW: How many music players does one person have. Most people only have one music player, which they will use with one piece of software.
Look at me, I’m downloading music from Real, not.
It amazes me that they think that the music store is the source of income they need. Apple will continue to dominate because they will continue to sell iPods. It really is that simple.
All this does is lock you into RealPlayer as your jukebox. Where is the choice their Rob?
I guess the idea is that you’ve bought the crappy Rio, then the Creative, then the Dull DJ and finally you got smart and bought an iPod. Choice of players.
I’m sticking with iPod/iTunes – no thanks Rob!
It states that Harmony supports devices with the other DRM, it does not state it writes the DRM. Reading encrypted files is different than writing encrypted files.
However, if “Harmony” really works, could people just use their translation software to convert old WMA files to AAC files?
That would be one use.
Thurrott could then use Harmony to convert AAC files to work with his “superior” Dell DJ.
looks like Stevo is gonna get pretty mad…
They’re missing the point completely. Yes they can interoperate with different players but the point is that iTunes is the BEST software for managing you library. Who really want’s to manage their music catalog over 2-3 different libraries? Most users have one portable player (iPod) and would prefer to have one library to manage also.
I dunno. Granted, this is a press release, but Real has lined up some real weight behind this announcement. It may all evaporate, but by making it look like they are helping the consumer by: (1) helping them deal with tech complexities; and (2) increasing their choice, they have fired a shot across Apple’s bow. It is going to be interesting to see how this plays out. FWIW, that link does not work; goes to a dead link page.
The audio terrorists have arrived. How many lawsuits will this REAL stupid move generate? Lots. You don’t reverse engineer a product just because the company won’t license it to you yet. This isn’t China.
I like that term ‘audio terrorists’. It suits Real well.
Who do you think would consist of the ‘axis of evil’?
I would suggest: Real Networks, and Chris Gorog (sp?) for a start.
I will never use it, but I think it`s cool. It will disturb apple`s music hegemony a little bit. I don`t like it if my life is controlled by one brand.
BTW: The link is dead (already?).
Ah, sorry, the link will probably work tomorrow only.
Dumb=Real & Dumber=Harmony
Axis of evil:
MSFT
SCOG
RIAA
Real
Roxio
Qualcomm
Gandalf, what is ‘SCOG’?
Also, why Qualcomm? What did they do?
I smell desperation, don’t you?
Can’t wait to see what Apple’s gonna do!
part of the reason the iPod thing would never work with other stores is because WMA will soon be updated with subscription in mind, which.. doesn’t jive with the ipod.
obviously.. Real’s not really with the WMA scene THAT much, but they have it at their store..
wow.
they list about 70 different music players… none of which keep Real in business…
since the Janus thing isn’t on Helix.. and the iPod doesn’t work with WMA.. I’m not seeing the upside for Real…
IOW.. Since the Subscriptions will never work for the iPod.. why does real want iPod support so badly? At the end of the day.. you’re running a freaking web-based music store that barely breaks even.
Poison Pill Indeed.
Larry Kenswil, president of Universal Music’s eLabs division, said in a statement. “We applaud RealNetworks’ efforts to help correct this situation and appeal to all people and companies in this area to work toward a world of universal interoperability.”
Here are your 3 words, larry…Peer to Peer. LOL. What a money grubbing dick.
Nevermind, I just found out. It’s SCO Group. Another great member to the axis of evil.
Harmony also will automatically change songs into an iPod-compatible format. But because Apple has not licensed its FairPlay copy-protection software to anyone, RealNetworks executives said its engineers had to re-create their own version in their labs in order to make the device play them back.
Although the company said this action wasn’t technically “reverse engineering,” the software could trigger intense legal scrutiny.
The license accompanying Apple’s iPod says purchasers cannot “copy, decompile, reverse engineer, disassemble, (or) attempt to derive the source code of” the software.
Boston patent attorney Bruce Sunstein said courts have issued mixed opinions on how much reverse engineering is allowed for purposes such as making compatible products.
“The law is unsettled,” Sunstein said. “We might find some litigation if Apple wanted to be aggressive.”
Indeed, lawsuits have been sparked by similar previous cases. In one famous example, Atari Games subsidiary Tengen created cartridges that worked with Nintendo’s NES game machine in the late 1980s, when Nintendo was barring any other company from doing so.
Nintendo sued and won when it was discovered that Tengen had obtained part of Nintendo’s software code from the U.S. Copyright Office and used it to make its games compatible.
RealNetworks has staunchly maintained that it has not illegally used any of Apple’s copyrighted software code, however.
“We certainly feel we have all the licenses and rights to do what we’ve done or we wouldn’t have done it,” RealNetworks’ Wolpert said.
Real is not doing anything to Apple. They will get sued by RIAA. Here’s why.
Real sells songs in a format that they *control*. When you want to copy it into iPod, they will simply convert their song into non-DRMed AAC for iPod. I don’t know how they can sync with iPod with their software, but that’s probably what they meant when they said they will make it work with iPod.
If they give you an electronic file in your computer that has DRM removed, they are in big trouble from RIAA.
I do not think they will encode it in FairPlay.
maybe IT_guy. but i heard the RIAA doesnt like the fact that apple is dominating the legal online music scene, so maybe this loosens some of apple’s grip.
in any case id like to kick ronny in the head
Think Steve’s pissed now that his vacation was ruined or is that the standard comment when Glaser calls?
“Glaser called Apple CEO Steve Jobs Friday to inform him of his plans but said he was told Jobs was on vacation. Apple was unavailable for comment.”
IT_guy, they are translating the DRM from one to another. They convert their Helix wrapped files into Fairplay wrapped files.