Real Networks Introduces Harmony

Real Networks announced a new technology that will supposedly ease some of the incompatibility problems of digital music store DRM systems between different types of devices. The technology is called Harmony and will be included in a beta version of RealPlayer v10.5, available on Tuesday.

The problem that necessitated something like Harmony is that there are a number of DRM protection technologies in wide use today. DRM is supposed to keep purchasers of digital music from freely duplicating songs by controlling how and where the content can be used. There are a number of schemes in use today, but all are incompatible with each other.

Real Networks has its own DRM technology, Helix, but the Creative Nomad Jukebox Zen Xtra was the only device that supported it. Harmony, then, was designed to bridge Helix-protected songs (purchased from Real's online music store) onto devices previously incompatible with Helix. Essentially, Harmony converts the protection wrapper from Helix format to the DRM format of the target device. This conversion shouldn't (theoretically at least) degrade the quality of the music, since only the protection wrapper is being changed. According to Real, Harmony make a laundry of devices Helix-compatible:

With Harmony Technology, RealPlayer Music Store supports more than 70 secure portable media devices, including all 4 generations of the iPod and iPod mini, 14 products from Creative, 14 from Rio, 7 from RCA, 9 from palmOne, 18 from iRiver, and products from Dell, Gateway, and Samsung. Generally speaking, Harmony supports any device that uses the Apple FairPlay DRM, The Microsoft Windows Media Audio DRM, or the RealNetworks Helix DRM, giving RealPlayer Music Store support for more secure devices than any other music store on the Internet.

It is worth noting that the reason why Real only had 1 compatible device before today was largely uninterest on the part of audio player makers. The big two in the DRM race are Apple and Microsoft. Microsoft was compatible with just about every device on the market, except for the market-leading iPod. Manufacturers just didn't see the need to add yet another standard into the mix. As was widely reported, Real CEO Rob Glaser attempted to get Apple CEO Steve Jobs on board, but was flatly turned down:

In April, Glaser e-mailed Jobs suggesting they meet to discuss making the iPod compatible with RealNetwork's music store, an alliance that would help fend off digital music advances by their shared rival, software giant Microsoft. Instead, RealNetworks said Apple officials did not respond and accused Apple sources of leaking the private e-mail to reporters.

Also, there is one big caveat to Harmony and one big implication. The caveat is that Harmony doesn't allow you to covert between the two dominant schemes, Microsoft WMA and Apple iTMS. Harmony converts from Real Helix to WMA or iTMS only.

The implication, however, is that Real or other companies could bridge between WMA and iTMS. This would be a much bigger deal, since the number of songs sold by these stores is drastically larger. Of course, Real's legal department is probably already standing by to take calls from Apple and Microsoft's legal teams.

More bits at Corante, Geekzone, SFGate, NetImperative, Billboard, BBC News, Slashdot, Engadget and BoingBoing.

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