Free music from Qtrax: just a misleading trick?

By Alex Zaharov-Reutt
Tuesday, 29 January 2008 04:47

Opinion and Analysis

When Qtrax announced at Cannes 2008 that it had secured the backing of the world’s major music labels, allowing users to ‘legally’ download virtually any song from a catalogue of 25 million sourced from p2p networks, there was a big problem: it doesn’t appear to be true, and the software still can’t be downloaded.

Qtrax is p2p music download software based on both the open-source Firefox browser and Songbird music player, allowing users to surf the regular Internet and search the Qtrax p2p libraries for music.

The service was meant to be free and legal, supported by advertising that appeared when users searched for music, and according to the Qtrax launch, was backed by the world’s major music labels.

Although the offer of free music would certainly bring in tens, if not hundreds of millions of eyeballs to the site, transforming those eyeballs into money paid by advertisers is still a big ask. Naturally, TV and radio has figured out how to offer ‘ad-supported’ content, as has Google and many other websites.

But Qtrax isn’t going to put audio ads at the beginning, middle or end of each track. The ads appear to only appear while you’re searching for music.

Qtrax are also talking about encouraging users who do transfer music they’ve downloaded to an mp3 player to connect that mp3 to Qtrax at least once every 30 days, allowing music labels to see which songs have been played more than others.

Sounds a little Orwellian and Big Brother-ish, doesn’t it – although it’s clearly one of the prices Qtrax wants us to pay for ‘free music’.

Unlike free music streaming services that let you listen to music online but not download it, the Qtrax service not only promises to let you download music that could be transferred to mp3 players, and even promised not only an upcoming Mac compatible version but iPod download compatibility as well.

Although this threatens to destroy ‘bricks and mortar’ music stores and download sites such as iTunes, Napster and others, there appears to be a rather massive fly in the ointment, as it simply doesn’t appear to be true, despite Qtrax spending a reported 500,000 British Pounds on Cannes launch event/party, even bringing James Blunt and LL Cool J on stage to spruik Qtrax’ qualities.

Unfortunately, however, Qtrax's oasis of free online music appears to be little more than a seductive mirage. Please read onto page 2...