News

With Apple Computer's iTunes music service not even one month old, the price wars have already begun.

On May 28, exactly 26 days after the launch of Apple's downloadable music service, Seattle-based RealNetworks, Inc. announced its own new music service—one that undercuts Apple's 99¢/track price by 20%. RealOne Rhapsody, an outgrowth of RealNetwork's recent acquisition of San Francisco's Listen.com, offers a huge library—more than 330,000 tracks available for on-demand listening, and more than 200,000 available for permanent download and "burning" onto CD.

The fee? Only 79¢ per track, "the lowest per-burn price available to US consumers through any of the new generation of digital music services," according to an official announcement from RealOne. With pricing substantially better than Apple's, Rhapsody is available to the 97% of the online market with Windows PCs. Apple's iTunes was initially offered only to Mac users, with a Windows version to become available later this year. "We want to draft off the attention they've gotten before they come out with a Windows service," RealNetworks marketing vice president Dan Sheeran told David Bank of the Wall Street Journal.

"We are especially excited about the availability of burns to CD for a mere 79¢," said RealOne senior vice president Merrill Brown. "We believe this is a great offer to consumers who are now realizing the power of online music services." The launch (or more properly, re-launch) of the Rhapsody download service means that RealNetworks will no longer promote MusicNet, a joint venture of AOL Time Warner Inc., Bertelsmann AG, and EMI Group PLC, the Journal reported.

The Rhapsody subscription service costs $9.95 per month, with a 14-day free trial. The service enables subscribers to "burn full albums or custom mix CDs, build their own custom Internet radio stations, listen to professionally-programmed stations, and browse extensive music information and editorial recommendations," the announcement stated. RealNetworks already had more than one million subscribers to its other services, prior to the acquisition of Listen.com.

With iTunes Music Store and Rhapsody, the race for online music fans has only begun. As reported May 26, Santa Clara, CA–based Roxio, Inc. agreed to acquire pressplay, the other music industry–backed online music service, and will launch its own service using the revived Napster brand name.