June 21, 2003

The Sound of Stolen Thunder

Real CEO Rob Glaser says that the company's Rhapsody streaming music service -- which it acquired with its purchase of Listen.com -- competes with Apple's iTune because "anyone can burn any song to a CD for 49 cents." But that's like saying that you can listen so long as you stay wedded to your CD player, when the whole point of digital music is bringing it with you on your digital device. Sorry, Rob, you just don't get it. Rhapsody is still advertised as "The Internet's Best Radio" because that's all streaming music really amounts to. Until you let people buy music and treat it like what it is, namely something they own, you aren't going anywhere.

 Posted by glenn

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