Ah, when CMU's chief RealPlayer monitor told me earlier this year that the latest version of the player would come with a big fat record button that enables users to record streaming audio and pop it out as a lovely MP3, I wondered how long before the record companies would start panicking. And this week Music Week has reported on this issue, so the panic is sure to set in bigtime.
Of course other players that capture streams have been around for ever, but RealPlayer is so much more widely used, and seen as very much a legitimate digital media player, that it may make the recording of streams much more common. Given that the labels have widely assumed streams as opposed to downloads only give web users temporary access to their music, the fact it is becoming easier to capture permanent copies of those streams won't go down so well. Especially when you consider how many people listen to radio services - including the BBC's stations - via the RealPlayer.
Music Week quote Reverb Music's Paul Harris thus: "This software has been available for some time, but the problem now is that whereas previously it was obviously illegal and came from clandestine websites, now as big a company, and one with as huge a market penetration as RealPlayer, is endorsing it".