The music download service Rhapsody has stepped up competition against
Apple’s iTunes by making its catalog of five million songs available
without electronic restrictions on playback or duplication and allowing
free previews of complete songs. With its announcement on Monday,
Rhapsody, a joint venture by RealNetworks and MTV Networks,
became the latest digital music service to do away with digital rights
management, or D.R.M., which prevents users from making unauthorized
copies of songs and can also determine which electronic devices can be
used to listen to the songs. Apple has used D.R.M. since it began
selling music on iTunes five years ago — and offers song previews at 30
seconds — but the other major download services, Amazon.com, Napster,
Wal-Mart and eMusic, all sell music without restrictions. Rhapsody will
restrict full-song previews to 25 a month, and the company also
announced that users of Verizon’s V Cast service can listen to songs
from Rhapsody through their cellphones.
From : http://www.nytimes.com/
Apple’s iTunes by making its catalog of five million songs available
without electronic restrictions on playback or duplication and allowing
free previews of complete songs. With its announcement on Monday,
Rhapsody, a joint venture by RealNetworks and MTV Networks,
became the latest digital music service to do away with digital rights
management, or D.R.M., which prevents users from making unauthorized
copies of songs and can also determine which electronic devices can be
used to listen to the songs. Apple has used D.R.M. since it began
selling music on iTunes five years ago — and offers song previews at 30
seconds — but the other major download services, Amazon.com, Napster,
Wal-Mart and eMusic, all sell music without restrictions. Rhapsody will
restrict full-song previews to 25 a month, and the company also
announced that users of Verizon’s V Cast service can listen to songs
from Rhapsody through their cellphones.
From : http://www.nytimes.com/
