joegratz.net

According to this Reuters story, at its press conference tomorrow RealNetworks will announce a portable subscription music service based on Microsoft’s Janus DRM technology. The subscription will cost $14.95, $5 more than a normal, non-portable Rhapsody subscription.

The overall arc (a portable service) is entirely expected; the particulars have a number of interesting implications. One is that RealNetworks is more or less giving up on using its own codecs or its own DRM in connection with Rhapsody. If they were serious about getting Helix DRM into the iPod or any other portable player, for example, this would be a strange move. They’re also matching — but not undercutting — Napster’s price for the very same product, which doesn’t strike me as a terribly bold move for a company that’s second or third to the market.

UPDATE: They’ve added community features and bumped the bitrate to 160kbps. You can now move files you’ve purchased (though not subscription files) to an iPod. And it acts as a system-wide media library.