The United States District Court for the Southern District of New York today made public a decision in the proceeding to determine reasonable license fees to be paid to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) by AOL, RealNetworks and Yahoo! for their online performance of musical works. Total payments to be made [...]

RealNetwork, MTV and Verizon Wireless today announced they are teaming to create a “digital music experience” that consumers can access via their PC, portable music device or mobile phone. According to the three companies, the service promises to unite the best of RealNetworks’ Rhapsody service and MTV’s URGE music service. Verizon Wireless’ V CAST Music [...]

Viacom’s MTV Networks is expected to announce today plans to merge its online digital music offerings into a joint venture with RealNetworks. MTV and RealNetworks, which runs subscription digital-music service Rhapsody, plan to join forces in a bid to compete with Apple Inc’s iTunes online music store.
Verizon Wireless is expected to supply mobile distribution for [...]

RealNetworks and SanDisk have announced plans to release a portable music player system that will compete with Apple’s iTunes/iPod combination and Microsoft’s Zune.
The companies plan to release the Sansa Rhapsody, a portable music player based on SanDisk’s e200. The e200 series is priced starting at about $110 for a 2GB player with a color [...]

Real Networks CEO Rob Glaser made some comments recently that are sure to generate controversy, suggesting that half the music on iPods is illegal and that the music industry made a mistake dealing with Apple.
“The music industry has made a mistake, not by agreeing to Apple’s fixed-price level, which is what gets all the attention, [...]