RealNetworks Venture May Find a Majority's Not Enough

Three out of five isn't bad. But it's not necessarily good, either.

Monday's announcement that three of the five major music labels have joined forces with Internet media firm RealNetworks (RNWK Quote) represents a real milestone: It's the furthest that anyone has gone toward establishing a viable business for distributing mainstream music online.

But because so many questions about the online music service remain unanswered, it's too early to tell whether the venture will be as successful as it is noteworthy. Among the unknowns about the venture, dubbed MusicNet, are its price to consumers, its ease of use, the selection of music it will make available, and what type of antitrust scrutiny it might raise.

In other words, it's unclear whether the alliance of AOL Time Warner's (AOL Quote) Warner Music Group, EMI Group and Bertelsmann's BMG Entertainment will click like those industry heavyweights the Three Tenors, or end up as imporant to musical history as the Hudson Brothers.

Along for the Ride?

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