Slashdot Mirror
Qtrax — Ad-Supported Music With iPod Compatibility?
dnormant writes in with a note about QTrax, a 5-year-old startup that just announced deals with all the major labels to provide free, ad-supported music downloads. The new wrinkle is that, though the free tracks come encumbered with Windows Media DRM, QTrax claims that they will be playable soon on iPods. Wired's assumption is that the company is on the verge of a deal with Apple to allow use of its FairPlay DRM in place of Microsoft's. (Apple hasn't licensed FairPlay to anyone so far.) The AP coverage of the story assumes that QTrax has found a way around FairPlay on the iPod, and if so, that its solution will break the next time Apple updates iTunes.
QTrax, a 5-year-old startup that just announced deals with all the major labels to provide free, ad-supported music
Hey, that's a pretty good idea. Maybe they could distribute them wirelessly... using radio waves!
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
From the article: "We've had a technical breakthrough which enables us to put songs on an iPod without any interference from FairPlay," said Allan Klepfisz, Qtrax's president and chief executive. Seems pretty damn clear to me.
maybe some people want to keep it legal but still not pay for music? just a thought. you know, i know it's not real popular around slashdot but there are still people who believe that artists deserve support and if they can't afford a large catalog taking a few seconds out here and there to listen to an ad is a pretty good trade.
or a better question is why buy them in a drmed proprietary format from a company that can't let in a little competition? why is it that apple still receives praise when they've proven that they're even worse than the big bad wolf microsoft?
The DRM business model is interesting. Ideally it would work allowing for people to receive reduced-priced music at the cost of ads or usability (i.e. music only able to be used on one device like what's been floating around lately) but the reality is they're providing another type of DRM which will allow another method of cracking and receiving (in this case) free music.
I realize that what they're trying for is a compromise, but as long as there are insanely poor college students with way too much time on their hands out there, the market they're targeting will never go for something like this in the way they intend.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
... it's just PR-fluff designed so people don't write them off as irrelevant because they don't support the single most popular PMP on the market.
I predict that the touted iPod-compatibility will remain "coming real soon now!" until the company is quietly wound down.
What part of "a well regulated militia" do you not understand?
I cannot see how they can put ads in place on the iPOD. The ad would have to be static, which is far less valuable these days then something that can be updated dynamically with all the invasion of privacy information they can collect.
So the future I see is........ "Oh baby, Baby...... pfff Umm like this is Britney, buy my album and stuff for reals. Lawyers cost money. I'm serial. pfff Hit me one more time"
Or a Paris Hilton track being interrupted by a commercial for Valtrex.
"We've had a technical breakthrough which enables us to put songs on an iPod without any interference from FairPlay," said Allan Klepfisz, Qtrax's president and chief executive. Let's be clear - the problem is DRM itself. The solution is to drop it.
The problem is not how to get DRM content onto an iPod without Apple's help. The problem is not how to get content onto an Apple. The problem is not that iPods only play open MP3s and Fairplay'd tunes - Jesus, that's not true (cue the dead horse beating).
The issue here - not in the summary - is that QTrax is P2P as well as download. And they're either scared or just stupid: As long as the DRM on downloads and advertising in the Qtrax application aren't too obtrusive, the music service may appeal to computer users now trolling for tracks via LimeWire and other unlicensed services, Enderle said.
"This is a way to get the stuff for free and not take the risk of having the (recording industry) show up at your doorstep with a six-figure lawsuit," he said. Call it Flamebait if you will for what I'm about to say (which this isn't, BTW): if these guys aren't stupid, then my first suspicion is that they're a stalking horse for the record industry to prove that DRM is ok, and that the record company's version of what DRM is ok on an iPod isn't subject to Apple's dictates. Failing that, then they actually believe you can have your DRM and eat it, too.
Either way, I'm disgusted by their attempt and their thinking.
Pathological kinda promises Path + Logical - but instead, you get stuck with pathetic.
QTrax, a 5-year-old startup
Um, they've been around for five years, I don't think they're exactly a startup anymore. More like a regular company that's trying to attract some VC money and subscribers by trying to look all shiny and new.
It's kind of like your mom wearing low-riders and a tube top--at some point this sort of thing just needs to stop.
"Wooosh" indeed.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
The only way Qtrax can get their music to play on the iPod is to a) make it DRM-free, which it doesn't sound like it's doing; b) use FairPlay DRM, which they seem to have eliminated; c) implement their DRM "client" (unlocking) on the iPod, which seems unlikely; or d) get Apple to license their DRM scheme for the iPod, retroactively. Yeah, that'll happen.
I smell a rat: too many claims, too few details.
I know! Let's sell mp3s without any DRM, so people can play them on *any* player, and support those with ads. Wait, what? Who are you guys? Why are you...*silenced gunfire*.
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
you're kidding right? A DRM format that continues to deliver its side of the bargain after the business model fails? Google Video, NFL, PlaysForSure, etc ad nauseam.
DRM seems to be a fair way to rent movies temporarily or to buy music you can burn to CDs at any point. Outside of that, its a "trust me!" game that you shouldn't trust past what you can't afford to lose at any moment in time.
Tom Krazit of CNET and Eric Savitz of Barrons Deny the Jesus Phone
When you say "a company that can't let in a little competition," are you arguing that:
... or anything else Microsoft-like. When did any of those things happen? Or are you talking about specific evils of Apple, such as:
.NET
- Apple has thwarted any retail market for devices that are not iPods, as Microsoft prevented the sale of DOS and Windows alternatives?
- that Apple should be forced to license FairPlay to other companies, like how Microsoft was forced to license Office to rival third parties for resale under different brands?
- that Apple should be forced to fund alternatives to iTunes for use with the iPod, the way Microsoft has enabled integration with Notes clients from Exchange, or CalDAV from Outlook clients, or WiiConnect compatibility from the Xbox 360?
- that the iPod should play WMA DRM, just like Microsoft supports PlayStation 3 games on the Xbox 360?
- that Fairplay should work on PlaysForSure players, just as Microsoft had to support Win32 apps on Unix?
Because any of those ideas would be batshit nuts. What were you really thinking?
And when in recent history has Apple become "even worse than the big bad wolf Microsoft," as I missed the story about:
- two decades of holding back better technology,
- promising vaporware that wasn't delivered for years if ever,
- being charged with monopoly market exploitation and overcharging customers by various states and countries,
- attempting to cover it up political astroturf campaigns uncovered by the LA Times,
- delivering unusable technology at absurd prices,
- raising the price of a desktop OS by 400 percent
- stealing code and violating copyright while advertising anti-piracy campaigns
- tightening spyware-policed phone home DRM on their OS
- starting a format war to control the world's media DRM and push a shitty authoring system like HDi
- working to raise the price of media downloads while killing off all fair use rights like WMA and WMV
- shipping a new OS whose main features revolve around HD DRM policing and OS Activation
- inventing Paladium
- delivering a crappy mobile OS they can't hardly sell but would love to stick the world with
- delivering a proprietary alternative to PDF, JPEG, MP3, H.264, Java, OpenDocument and every other open format with the intent to screw the world with a poorly designed file architecture that forces dependence upon a derelict monopoly
- delivering an open sourced alternative to the NT kernel
- delivering an open sourced, standards based alternative to the IE browser engine
- delivering an advanced graphics compositing engine for Vista to copy 7 years later
- delivering the advanced Cocoa frameworks to power Mac OS X and the iPhone, well ahead of
- delivering a smartphone that blows away the state of the art and forces innovation into a dead industry
- promoting an open alternative to DirectX in OpenGL
- promoting an open alternative to WMA DRM with the MP3 playing iPod
- promoting a mild DRM that offers fair use rights to revitalize the dead music industry
- promoting an end to DRM restrictions in music downloads
- promoting an open alternative to WMV/VC-1 by pushing joint development of ISO MPEG standards
- creating a competitive music player that sells better than DRM obsessed, subscription touting rivals
- creating a competitive operating system that sells better than DRM obsessed, authorization touting Vista
- promoting the use of open file formats such as PDF, PNG, MP3/AAC, H.264, OpenDocument
- promoting a standards based web and working on HTML 5 rather than a Win32/.NET/Flash-based web
- contributing back to the GPL/BSD community in core OS, security, and web rendering
- developing a calendar server and releasing it to the community under the free Apache license
Anyway, that's why there's a difference. Not sure why its so invisible to you. Also, the sky is generally blue on clear days.
Apple TV Promises to Take 2008
So do you see the merits in having cable TV at home or do you buy every thing individually that you watch?
I have Rhapsody and it works out great. My kids and I each have a portable unit, for $15/month, we each have an unlimited amount of music to listen too on any of our computers (linux as well), or on our portables. One subscriptions allows 3 authorized computers and 3 portable devices. We can also use the Rhapsody web interface on any computer and and it does not count against the authorized total.
For me, I already have the stuff I want on physical media or FLAC but I like the convenience of using Rhapsody on my portable. For my kids, they listen to new stuff and what is popular right now, not what was popular 6 months ago. Buying the tracks or the physical disk of "NOW That's what I call Music volume 2x" is only good for them for a few months.
So in three years, you spent $540 and have 540 songs. I have paid $540 and have had unlimited access to millions of songs. I don't care if I own it or not, $15 a month is the cost on a single CD or 15 songs.
The system does not work out for everyone but I've listened to more stuff that I would have NEVER bought or heard otherwise. There is no risk. I can drag over play lists, if I do not like them, oh well. I know my daughter has a dynamic play list of some type of top hits, every time her portable syncs, she has what someone considered to be "hot" now on her device. If you really do want to purchase a song as your own like iTunes, you can for $0.79. I've only done that once and that was before we had subscription compatible players.
I don't care what you like better, I know what I like better. Why do you even care what your friend is doing anyway?
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.