andPOP - Pop Culture With Substance

After announcing their new Harmony technology earlier this month, which allows songs downloaded from the Rhapsody music store to play on Apple’s iPod, RealNetworks today announced a new promotion, directly targetted at Apple.

Dubbed the ‘Freedom of Choice’ campaign, RealNetworks will sell mp3 singles for US$0.49/per song and US$4.99 for most albums. Using Harmony, users should be able to play these songs on their iPod (I say should because Apple may decide to block songs that use RealNetwork’s Harmony format).

“Thanks to RealPlayer with Harmony Technology, consumers can now buy digital songs and play them on virtually any device of their choice, just like how CDs and DVDs work,” said Rob Glaser, founder and chief executive of RealNetworks.

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• Apple Upset With Real Network’s Tactics
• Apple Introduces Larger Capacity iPods; iTMS Sells 10 million songs
• Apple Approaching Half A Billion Downloaded Songs, Begins Countdown