Competition is a good thing. Real, for a limited time, is offering songs for half the price of most digital music services. While most offer digital downloads for $0.99 USD per song (or $9.99 USD per album), Real has priced their music at $0.49 per song and $4.99 per album. On top of that, the company is using new software technology, Harmony, that will allow songs downloaded from their music store to be playable on all Apple iPods. As of now, Apple leads all other digital music services, with more than 100 million downloads sold to date.

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Gallery: Real Offering $0.49 Song Downloads

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Gear Live Music Columnist Greg Norton brings us his newly formatted weekly article, which will now be titled Gear Live Playlist. Within, Greg takes a look at the latest releases as well as the essentials you need to have in your music collection. This week he looks at The Hives, The Cure, and the good rambler himself, Bob Dylan.

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Gallery: Gear Live Playlist

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Gear Live Music Reporter Greg Norton checks in with his Mid-Week Music Roundup. This week, Greg gives us the low down on the latest from The Roots, Taking Back Sunday, and The Killers.

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Gallery: Mid-Week Music Roundup

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So, by now you've probably seen the movie. Twice. If you are considering purchasing the soundtrack, join Gear Live Music Columnist Greg Norton in his debut column, as he gives us an in-depth look at the Spider-Man 2 Soundtrack.

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Gallery: Spider-Man 2 Soundtrack Review

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In what has to be seen as a big move in digital music, Napster has signed eight colleges up to its "Napster University Program". If you haven't heard about this, basically Napster subscription service is paid for by the universities and offered to the students for free. In some cases, part of the service is covered by the tuition. Napster says this is a big step in weaning college students off illegal Peer-to-Peer file sharing. Music downloads will still cost students the regular $0.99 per track, but streaming unlimited tracks is absolutely free.

The colleges that have signed up with the Napster University Program this far include Cornell University, George Washington University, Middlebury College in Vermont, University of Miami, University of Southern California, Wright State University, Penn State University, and University of Rochester.

Gallery: Napster Offered Free By Some Colleges and Universities

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We knew it would be just a short period of time between the announcement of the contest, and the 100 Millionth download. The 100,000,000th (that's a lot of zero's!) song, "Somersault (Dangermouse remix)" by Zero7 was purchased by Kevin Britten, 20, of Hays, Kansas on Sunday, July 11, according to Apple.

So what does this mean? For Apple, it cements their status as the premier online music store as they have reached a place that their competition may take years to reach. For Kevin Britten, it means a 40GB iPod, 10,000 free songs from iTunes, his own Celebrity Playlist, and a 17" Powerbook. Nice.

Gallery: iTunes Reaches 100 Million Milestone

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If for some reason you are all iTunes'ed out, or are looking for (legal!) higher quality music downloads, you may want to give the RealPlayer Music Store a try. We took Real's Download service to task, and are back with our report.

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Gallery: REVIEW: RealPlayer Music Store

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Chances are, if you have been downloading your music legally, you have been doing so through an American-based company's program or website. Apple iTunes, Wal-Mart Music Downloads, MusicMatch, and Napster are names we hear often when it comes to getting your digital music online. The great thing about these music stores is that you get instant gratification - pay for your music and download it within seconds...but now there is an even cheaper way. Click for more.

Click to continue reading AllOfMP3 Offers Cheap Downloads From Abroad

Gallery: AllOfMP3 Offers Cheap Downloads From Abroad

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