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
What makes me mad about this is that REAL has cracked APPLEs fairplay software without APPLEs consent to do so and have announced this like they developed it!
REAL couldn’t get APPLE to licence fairplay to them so REAL illegally cracked APPLEs fairplay software (which is TOTALLY illegal without APPLEs consent).
BLOODY CHEEK!
APPLE should sue their arses!!
No one who uses iTunes would use this unless they could buy a song and then import it into iTunes, in the event that Real had a song that the iTMS doesn’t have. You can’t sync between two different mp3 players, I don’t think. So we don’t really have to worry about anyone that primarily uses iTunes already.
The other reason this is potentially good is to open up any staunch Real users to the idea of the iPod.
I just read that a lot of record company execs are happy because they think people will now buy more of their music.
But overall, I think this is shady, shady business. This is obviously a move of desperation. You can’t ask a company who in so many words tells you no, and then turn around and do it anyway.
Honestly, I just got done reading the “bad reviews” of RealPlaer over at CNET (because I have to endure watching my music teacher use the RealPlayer when I’m in class and I know it’s a horrible music player filled with ads and spyware), and I don’t think we have much to worry about. People complained of ads, spyware, it hogs system resources, blah blah blah. Funny stuff. It’s everything that iTunes ISN’T.
Here’s an iTunes friendly negative review of Real: “For a time when I was using real player it seemed fine until I upgraded my computer to run Win XP then all hell broke lose. My machine crashed and it continued to do so if you are a XP user try ITUNES works much better on XP”
If you want some real laughs, head on over to CNET and read the negative reviews of RealPlayer. Hilarious! I don’t think we have much to worry about.
Well, I guess the “Hell hath no fury” thing might apply here. The thing is I don’t think this will save their sinking ship to do this. ITMS has really good momentum right now. As long as Apple keeps their eye on the ball and continue improving and innovating it will be very difficult for anyone to catch up significantly.
in response to g’s post…
While realplayer does hog resources, so does iTunes. On windows, you have iPodService and iTunesService lauching on startup. Even if you don’t have an ipod you need to have the 3-4mb ipodservice… if you disable it, iTunes restores it upon the next launch.
I use my powerbook to control my iPod and my desktop PC just as a jukebox. There is no reason to have ipodservice running on the pc if I don’t ever plug the ipod into it.
If Harmony works as advertised then Rob Glaser is facing jail time for encouraging piracy.
Ed,
Qualcomm had a near monopoly (90% marketshare) in US (CDMA) cell phone chipsets which enabled them to make insanely high profits. Cell phone use is way behind in the US because of this.
Not as clear cut as the others on my list (that’s why they are bottom) but they have made excessive profits and restricted customer choice by protecting their near monopoly. They also spread lots of FUD and have dubious software patents.
Similar to the MS business model but they haven’t been as successful in infecting the rest of the world despite US govt support.
right jack. And the only way anyone could catch up is to operate outside of the law.
Oh wow. Thanks for the info Gandalf. Didn’t know that.
Jeff:
That may be true, I don’t know because I don’t use a PC or Real. I was just commenting on what I seen on the CNET reviews. Aside from system resources, the spyware and ads would be enough to detract me from their product, supposing that it worked fine on the computer. When my music teacher launches RealPlayer at school it bothers me just to look at the advertisements. I cringe.
I’m just trying to figure out the real-world functionality of whatever the hell Real is trying to pull. I don’t think Apple has much to worry about.
Well looks like Real developed something from scratch that works around Apple’s DRM.
Apart from the lawsuits it might have an interesting effect.
iPod works with Apple and Real. Now if Real licenses Harmony to Sony, Best Buy, Wall Mart, well the iPod will be the most compatible music player won’t it? Either way you slice it, it will sell more iPods.
Talk about working for the other guys.
I think if Apple thought it was ok, they would rather license FairPlay and get revenue rather than REAL license their “hack” and the revenue go to REAL.
If Apple’s only motive was to sell iPods, they would have either allowed WMA with DRM, or license FairPlay.
It is obvious that SJ has grander expectations for Apple, such as becomming an entertainment company bigger than Disney. It would fit with his ego.
go Real go.
show these twits what innovation is!
ron, only you would say something so asinine.
I think Al hit the nail on the head.
<off topic>
Also, what is with the pop-ups that come up when I visit this site. I’m on a crappy Dell at work with no pop-up blocker because I need admin privelages to install one. Funny, that. It seems geared towards making Pee Sea users more frustrated. The one I got today was something like “do you have adware on your computer and want to get rid of it.” Sounds just like something to make them more angry and confused.
</continue with topic>
Oh you Apple morons just shut up. Yes this is the ‘Real’ Ron Glaser, I just had to come to a mac site to see what you mac morons had to say about all of this.
First off, you are all lucky that I am making this compatible with your puny Mac OS X.
Second, you little peons need to embrace ipod harmony because our music store is far superior to your isongs music store.
Third, your pathetic attempt at encrypting AAC dubbed ‘fairplay’ was a joke. I had my top workers uncrack it in a matter of 2 days. In fact they decoded the whole thing late at nite while playing computer games and eating pizza.
Tomorrow you will see the brilliance of my new software. It is going to make Steve Jobs cry. In fact the next time I see Steve walking around in his dirty mock black turtleneck and levis jeans, I am going to slap him in the face.
Finally, you al need to realize that the ipod is really a creation of Real. Apple stole our technology and hardware blueprints before we were able to patent the technology. It should be the Real iPod not the Apple iPod. Those in the inner circles know this is the truth.
Ron Glaser
CEO Real
rglaser@real.com
‘REAL’ RON GLASSIER!
LOL!!
Get it!
This guy needs to see a phychiatrist!!
LOL!!
Yeah, the more and more I look at it, (despite the positive effects) all I can think of is that it’s Real’s final attempt to ride the coattails of another company to boost their own profits before they plunder.
This is not the same as some people are saying with the idea of having a standard platform for all musical downloads because they are all different in quality and delivery. It’s not like having one Walkman to play all CD’s because audio data off of a CD is standard across the board. This is different in that there is R&D that goes into developing secure downloads and better software (which Apple does damn well), and Real is trying to cut in on the profits of what Apple has developed. They seem to be harmlessly integrating themself into the iPod phenomenon, but…
They are a parasite and must be destroyed!!
The only logical reason to use a music service other than iTunes is to purchase music to put in one of the many cheap MP3 players on the market. So what is the point? What iPod owner would want to use it?
I think some companies have riped off Apple so often it’s become more of a habit than any logical reason.
Why has no-one pointed this out yet:
Rhaposody Sayeth:
This Platform Is Not Supported
Downloads are only available on PCs running Windows 98 and up and with:
Internet Explorer 5.5, or newer
Netscape 7.0, or newer
So, they want Apple to support their music store, which only works on Windows PCs. Uh-huh.
“The only logical reason to use a music service other than iTunes is to purchase music to put in one of the many cheap MP3 players on the market. So what is the point? What iPod owner would want to use it?”
Because Real’s music store sells 192Kbit/s AAC tracks, you ignorant Mac zealot.
In cooler news (and VERY likely to dwarf the Real announcement): http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2004/jul/26motorola.html
Two words: “Hello MOTO” 😀
Perhaps Apple should just do nothing … until the next iTunes update encrypts the authorization algorithm, permanently barring this sort of thing. Anything they say now would reek of FUD.