At 49c a song, God you'd have to be a thief at birth to not stop stealing music. In any case, they don't have a total selection of my choice anyhow; but at least I can buy mainstream. I'll also have to battle with backing up licenses and all but I think it's worth it.
On the whole Apple note....Apple has never really played nice. They've always been that one that refuses to lets see, how do I put it...share homework? I mean - I really don't care because how I see it, if it's THEIR stuff, it's THEIR stuff as in it's up to the consumer to determine whether Apple's technology is successful or not, and it has to be a damn good program to be locked up the way it is and have people buy it. Real did a nasty (but very funny thing)...lol. I don't buy into the MAC vs. PC thing, but I can say that though I really don't like Macs, as I said - it's gotta be good to have a user base that keeps it so strong after so long.
I believe in sharing ;), but if it's their property then it's their right to do what they want.
Gonna be super funny if real 'harmonizes' again with the Ipods next software update.

I'd agree with you, but I've found a very nice place to get cheap CD's that aren't much more expensive than buying compressed songs online. Half.com is my new CD warehouse. I get the cd's for ~$4 or $5 and pay $2.50 for s&h. So far my experiences have been good. One CD was $6.50 total and came shrinkwrapped. The other was $7.50 total and came used but in very good condition. Plus, I get the real CD and don't have to lose quality by compressing the songs again to make them compatible with my iPod.

I highly recommend you check it out. It's worth an additional $3-5 and a week or two to me when I get the real CD.

My friend has become quite the alcoholic because of REAL.. They are giving 3 or 4 songs away for free when you purchase a 12 pack of heineken beer.. He loves it..

...even if at 49 cents, people are buying music rather than stealing it.

It's supply and demand. Lower the price and demand will rise. But if anything, this shows that people will "buy" rather than "steal" if the price is low enough.

Apple should have simply licensed the technology at an OVERWHELMINGLY OUTRAGEOUS fee. Much like they did the 1394 spec.

Apple's comment about Real having the tactics and ethics of a hacker will only come back to haunt them as they aren't really playing nice.

There should be full compatibility and Apple should embrace that, instead of limiting what you can and can't do with a song when purchased, this will only drive more people away currently from online music from Apple and Real and other online music download companies. When consumers are brought in, with companies talking about 99 cent downloadable music, when you can't really do jack with it, there are some problems, and Apple only hampers the situation by not accepting compatibility, ESPECIALLY WITH MUSIC. When you create this nonsense and confusion over downloadable music that Real is trying to overcome, your led with more incompatibility nonsense on the side of Apple. This is going to be heavy bad news for consumers, unless Real releases fix's to counter Apple's 'software updates'.

But isn't Real just as bad? It's not as if RealAudio is any less crippled than Apple's AAC. Seems like you're just trading one bad thing for another. At least the iPod can play MP3s.

It is also possible that Apple doesn't really want to associate itself with Real. RealPlayer, after all, was the poster-child of deceptive marketing.

I'm sad that online downloads still do not reflect what emule and bittorrent are able to do.

Also, selling song by song is pretty much the wrong way to go, how are people supposed to get the whole meaning of an album anymore?

Will anyone get the full musical taste of what a band provides? When it comes to song by song, I find the people that usually go song by song are most often than not usually more lacking in musical taste and knowledge. When you get the full essence of an album, it's a different story with a larger, more deep aspect as the whole piece, is the whole album, unless the band or artist just sucks.

That's the problem though...most "mainstream" artists anymore are just regurgitating what a record company things will sell. Really, there's not much "meaning" to an entire album...and hasn't been since the late 90's. I refuse to buy albums anymore simply because I end up only getting 2...maybe 3 songs that are actually decent. So I'm spending approximately $5 a song.. So $1 isn't sounding too bad to me..but $0.50 is much better. Especially since now the record label doesn't have to brand, package, ship, or market that particular digital song. I believe in artists being compensated for their productions, but most artists should care more about their fans and start taking some personal interest in the songs they produce. Very few artists are actually involved in the production of an album, and even less choose which songs are actually on the album. My advice: artists, if you want those million dollar contracts then make something worth buying on a *consistent* basis. Record labels: embrace the new technology and stop fighting a war you've been losing since the mid 90's.

Maybe one of the reasons apple has always been a far far far distant second to microsoft is because of tactics like this - Not making their technology compatible with anything else.

I'd actually probably buy an ipod if I didn't have to use itunes. iTunes adds some funky text to the comments of mp3 files that are ripped making the advanced details unreadable by some other programs.. It's a neat program, but unusable to me..

Go real! And go Microsoft - They just opened an online music store too..