Real Puts iPod Back in Harmony

The cat and mouse game continues. In between a major update to its online music store and a warming to Microsoft's digital rights management (DRM) standard, RealNetworks on Tuesday quietly slipped in an update to its Harmony technology that will allow songs from its stores to be played on all flavors of Apple's popular iPod.

Harmony is a technology that translates between competing DRM standards. The software does not remove or disable any DRM in audio files, instead allowing it to be understood by the software of players that do not play Real content natively.

When the company last attempted in December to break into the walled garden that Apple has created around the iPod, Apple responded by saying that Real had adopted the "tactics and ethics of a hacker."

Apple challenged Harmony both legally and technologically by investigating the possibility of DCMA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) violations and issuing an update that broke the compatibility.

While compatibility has been restored through Harmony for the iPod and Real's pay-per-download store, the iPod will not work with Real's new subscription service. Customers must have either the iRiver H10 or the Creative Zen Micro players to use those services, which support Microsoft's Janus secure clock DRM technology.

The competing methods of DRM are an issue that has come to the forefront of the legal digital music debate. Record executives have complained that Apple has too much power in the industry, and has effectively been able to set the price for downloads.

Rivals also say that Apple is stifling competition by refusing to license its FairPlay DRM technology for use on other MP3 players, forcing its customers to purchase an iPod.