Free music from Qtrax: just a misleading trick?

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

Opinion and Analysis

According to a report in the UK Times Online, EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and Universal have all said they have no current deals in place to allow Qtrax to distribute their music free of charge to consumers.

The Financial Times says that Warner did have a deal with Qtrax, but that deal had since expired. The article also states that Qtrax apparently made a ‘good faith’ payment to Sony BMG, and that a source close to Universal claims that they expect ‘a deal to be completed’.

Unfortunately, the labels’ denials mean that Qtrax hasn’t been able to launch its service as planned. The Qtrax software remains undownloadable, with a promise it will go live at ‘Midnight EST’, but even if it could be downloaded, very little could be downloaded – legally, at least.

If Qtrax can pull off its free music trick, it will certainly be a revolution that will greatly affect the music industry worldwide even more so than illegal music downloads already has, and will probably send the share prices of music retailers down, as they stand to lose the most from the deal.

But until that happens, Qtrax smacks of dot.com tomfoolery and trickery, where the best part thing a dotcom company ever did was to hold a massively expensive and very cool launch party.

Unlimited legal free music downloads? Although that would undoubtedly be cool, let me be the first to say that I’ll believe it... when I hear it!