Rich Fiscus
12 Jun 2008 20:44
Qtrax, which bills itelf as "The world's first free and legal P2P music download network," is scheduled to start offering downloads on June 18. You may remember that their launch in January was unique for an online music service. It featured a great deal of hype and an ad-supported client, but not a single song.
In reality the original event appeared to have been timed for maximum exposure at the annual MIDEM music industry conference in Cannes, France. Unfortunately it quickly became more notable for the company's claims they had secured contracts to provide music from every major label, which ultimately proved to be false.
This time around, however, the situation looks much better. For starters they seem to actually have some music now.
One thing that doesn't seem quite clear is where the service will be available. Although the Qtrax website has sections for various coutries, one of the major label agreements cited in ther Press section indicates that EMI songs will only be available to residents of the US and Canada. That makes sense when you consider that the only other similar service, SpiralFrog, has the same limitation.
It also appears they'll be limited to songs from EMI and Univerasal Music Group. Although they've managed to get agreements from the publishing arms of the other two major labels, Sony BMG and Warner Music, they still need permission from the recorded music division of each company.