Technology: Punching at iTunes

How rivals are taking aim at Apple's dominance in digital music

For all the elegance of Apple's popular iPod, there has always been one significant flaw in its setup: if you wanted to purchase music online to play on it (as opposed to just, um, appropriating songs from various file-sharing programs), you had to do so through the company's iTunes music store.

That changed in late July when RealNetworks released a beta version of a technology called Harmony that mimics iPod's copy-protection software. That means the songs sold on its Real Music Store can now also run on Apple's player.

Apple said it was "stunned" at Real's move and has threatened...

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