Tag archive: RHAPSODY

Following Barnes & Noble's scathing attack on the Kindle Fire during its Nook Tablet unveiling, Amazon has hit back with its own Kindle Fire press release. Today, the online retailer announced its lineup of launch apps for the Kindle Fire. Among them are Netflix, Pandora, and a number of other apps that were thought to be strengths of the Nook Tablet. It looks like those in the market for an e-reader tablet this holiday season (or we… Read More

Did you know that Napster was still alive? We almost forgot. Facing young competition from Spotify and other services, Rhapsody has decided that it's easier to buyout the competition. Today, the number one subscription music service (Rhapsody) will purchase the number two music subscription service (Napster) from its owner, Best Buy, which purchased the company in 2008. Many will remember Napster for its origins as a free service that… Read More

Walmart has issued a memo to all music licensing partners and informed them that the digital music store at “mp3.walmart.com” will be shutting down on August 28, 2011. All music content will no longer be available for download and users are urged to download DRM-free tracks before becoming unavailable. After the store closes up, tracks containing DRM will still be supported and will continue to work as the DRM servers are being kept… Read More

Spotify is starting to look like the boy who cried wolf. After trying to introduce a US version for two years, and despite the months of “imminent US launch” whispers we’ve endured, it once again sounds like Spotify is about to arrive stateside. As usual, there is some pretty solid evidence to back this up: AllThingsD reports that the European music streaming phenom has just closed a $100 million round of fundraising (raising its valuation to… Read More

Tennessee lawmakers think that sharing a Netflix password is like stealing cable. Today, lawmakers in the state passed a new measure that criminalizes using a friend's login for entertainment services like Netflix, Hulu Plus, or Rhapsody. All the bill needs now is the governor's signature, and the AP reports that Gov. Bill Haslam is expected to sign the bill. “I don't know enough about that legislation, but if it's… Read More

Federal regulators have begun to scrutinize the terms of Apple's newly-announced subscription feature for apps, sources familiar with the matter tell the Wall Street Journal. The US Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have begun preliminary investigations into whether Apple has violated antitrust laws by requiring app publishers to sell their content subscriptions through the iTunes App Store, and for charging then a… Read More

Google announced today the launch of One Pass, a new payment system that allows online and mobile publishers to charge for their digital content. Using One Pass, publishers can “set their own prices and terms,” says Google on its official company blog. This “open and flexible” policy stands in stark contrast to Apple's subscription service, announced Tuesday, which some say may violate antitrust laws due to… Read More

Music subscription service Rhapsody isn’t a fan of Apple’s new App Store guidelines, and it’s letting everyone know. In response to the new purchasing policies, Rhapsody has issued a statement: “Our philosophy is simple too – an Apple-imposed arrangement that requires us to pay 30 percent of our revenue to Apple, in addition to content fees that we pay to the music labels, publishers and artists, is economically untenable. The bottom line is we… Read More

Rhapsody has landed on the BlackBerry in beta form. The streaming-music service has been available for iPhone and Android users for sometime, but up until now has neglected Research in Motion’s BlackBerry. Rhapsody announced that the service is now available to users of “America’s hardest-working smartphone” through an app available at Rhapsody's website. It plans to make the app downloadable through BlackBerry's App World soon.… Read More

With Napster, Rhapsody and even newcomers like MOG hawking all-you-can play music for about the same price, the market for subscription music services is already packed shoulder to shoulder with vendors. They’ll all have to shove aside and make room for one more this week with the introduction of Rdio, a new service from the brains behind Skype, Kazaa and Joost. After opening a private, invite-only beta in June, Rdio’s library of 7 million songs… Read More

File sharing pioneers Janus Friis with Niklas Zennström are back again: after launching Kazaa, turning their attention to VoIP and launching Skype (and dare we mention Joost?) and enduring years of court battles and corporate negotiations, Friis and Zennström are back with Rdio, an all-you-can-eat subscription-based music service aimed at Web and smartphone users. But Rdio won't just be a run-of-the-mill music service: it aims… Read More

Subscription music service Rhapsody has finally completed the process of spinning loose of its dual corporate parents, RealNetworks and Viacom. As part of the celebration, Rhapsody has rolled out a new logo…but potential customers are probably more interested in Rhapsody's new pricing: $10 per month for Rhapsody Premiere, an all-you-can-handle music streaming to PCs, home audio systems, or (single) mobile device that can handle… Read More

Real Networks and media giant Viacom have announced plans to spin music subscription service Rhapsody as an independent company. To make the move Viacom will restructure its minority stake in the company and turn over necessary intellectual property rights, while RealNetworks will surrender its majority stake and contribute about $18 million in operating capital to get Rhapsody up on its feet as an independent player. Once the deal is done,… Read More

The television set has to be the most loved device in the house. After all, how many hours do you spend in front of the toaster each day? Despite all of that adoration, though, the boob tube no longer corners the market when it comes to audiovisual excitement. Thanks to advancements in online multimedia delivery, services such as YouTube, Picasa and iTunes also offer a lot of Web-based entertainment to get you through the wee hours of the… Read More

RealNetworks' streaming music service Rhapsody—developed in partnership with MTV—has long offered an all-you-can-eat music subscription service starting at $12.99 a month. However, the biggest hurdle to broad adoption of Rhapsody has been one simple problem: none of the service's DRM-protected tracks with work with Apple's market-dominating iPod. Today, Rhapsody hopes to crack into the iPod market with its… Read More