Problem with audio! Firefox prevents audio playback

Binary package hint: firefox-3.0

Whenever I open Firefox and go to a website which performs audio playback, firefox starts blocking audio playback on my machine. Even if I pause the playback(or even close that window) and try opening some other audio application like rythmbox to play other songs it does not play.
Unless I close firefox I am not able to play anything else. This is a bit frustrating. :)

sriram@sriram-laptop:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 8.04.2
Release: 8.04

sriram@sriram-laptop:~$ apt-cache policy firefox-3.0
firefox-3.0:
  Installed: 3.0.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
  Candidate: 3.0.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
  Version table:
 *** 3.0.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy-updates/main Packages
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy-security/main Packages
        100 /var/lib/dpkg/status
     3.0~b5+nobinonly-0ubuntu3 0
        500 http://archive.ubuntu.com hardy/main Packages

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: i386
Date: Fri Mar 27 20:59:51 2009
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
Package: firefox-3.0 3.0.7+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.04.1
PackageArchitecture: i386
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games:/opt/real/RealPlayer
 LANG=en_US.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: firefox-3.0
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-23-generic i686