RealNetworks unveils new music download service

WASHINGTON – The Internet media company RealNetworks unveiled a music download service yesterday that could change how consumers think about their song collections.

The company's chairman, Rob Glaser, showed a House Judiciary subcommittee a mock-up of the music industry's for-pay alternative to Napster, whose popular, free swapping of copyrighted songs was ruled illegal.

MusicNet, set to debut in August, is a collaboration of three of the big five record labels: AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann AG and EMI Group. It promises a cafeteria-style way of purchasing songs.

A competing service, also set to debut around the same time, has been shown to legislators over the past month. The other two record giants, Universal and Sony, are responsible for that service, called Duet.

The goal is to keep people buying music but with more variety and control over what they hear, in exchange for a monthly fee.

But Duet and MusicNet may change the way consumers behave in other ways. Both groups have committed to offering only streamed music - which has to be downloaded each time - and "tethered downloads," which have a special license attached to them.

The record labels like this format, since they can keep track of where and when the music is played. This may keep consumers from transferring the songs to a portable player or recording them onto a custom CD.

The demonstration before the intellectual property subcommittee showed that if a person stops their subscription to either service, they may not be able to keep listening to the songs they downloaded. In essence, consumers wouldn't buy music, just rent it.

Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Va., said that unless the services become more flexible, they may not be able to compete with products like Napster and Gnutella, which offer unlimited file sharing. Boucher said companies won't be able to sue Gnutella like they have Napster since Gnutella has no central services or company.