Verizon Wireless offers Rhapsody music subscriptions, iTunes yawns

With the recent announcement that Rhapsody would be getting rid of its copy protection on all music from their online music store, Verizon Wireless has decided to use the music subscription service to allow customers to download unlimited tracks to their phone for $15 / month.  At&t currently offers a similar subscription based service powered by Napster which also followed the move by Apple iTunes and Amazon.com to move away from digital rights management (DRM) and making it difficult to move the music between devices instead.  One other enhancement recently made by Rhapsody has been the expansion of the 30 second music samples to the full tracks, but limiting web surfers to 25 full track listens per month without a Rhapsody subscription.

While Verizon Wireless claims to be the second-largest U.S. distributor of music downloads after iTunes (counting ringtones as well as full tracks), Apple is hardly shaking in their shoes.  For starters, the $15 unlimited service from Verizon still come with DRM and requires users to connect their phones to a Windows PC running Rhapsody’s software.  There is also no Mac software available an entire market segment will miss the opportunity to use the service when the entire process could have been streamlined over their speedy EVDO Rev A network.

Full Press Release:

NEW YORK (AP) — Cell phones are becoming more useful devices for listening to music. Verizon Wireless is introducing Rhapsody’s subscription music service Monday, allowing its customers to download as much music as they want to their phones for $15 per month.

The service will work with seven current handsets and three to be launched soon, including the third version of the popular music-oriented LG Chocolate.

The wireless arm of AT&T Inc. has a similar subscription arrangement with Napster Inc.

In a related announcement, Rhapsody said it is getting rid of copy protection on all tracks bought from its online music store. Beginning Monday, customers can buy music in the MP3 format, which will play on practically any music gadget, including iPods.

Rhapsody is following in the tracks of Napster, Apple Inc.’s iTunes and Amazon.com Inc., all of which have introduced MP3 downloads and moved away from digital rights management, or DRM, which prevents copying and piracy, but also makes it difficult to legally move music between devices.

Rhapsody is a joint venture of RealNetworks Inc. and Viacom Inc. through its MTV subsidiary.

Apart from its music sales and subscription service, Rhapsody provides 30-second music samples that can be played on several Web sites, through “music discovery service” iLike Inc. Those clips will now be expanded to full tracks, and surfers can listen to up to 25 of them per month without a Rhapsody subscription.

The MP3s without copy protection will extend to RealNetworks’ existing relationship with Verizon Wireless. Previously, a user who bought and downloaded an individual song on a Verizon VCast handset got another copy of the song for the PC. Now, that copy will be an unprotected MP3. The copy that arrives wirelessly on the phone will still be in a protected format.

“We’re taking this one step at a time,” said Ed Ruth, Verizon Wireless’ director of digital music. There’s a concern, he said, that allowing unprotected downloads directly to cell phones could encourage piracy.

Songs downloaded through the new $15 unlimited service on Verizon phones will still come with DRM. The process requires users to connect their phones to a Windows PC running Rhapsody’s software. There is no Macintosh version.

Verizon Wireless claims to be the second-largest U.S. distributor of music downloads, after iTunes. That’s counting sales of ringtones as well as full tracks. (source: Peter Svensson, AP)