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Music Labels say No Deal with Qtrax
mikesd81 writes "Sunday we discussed apparently great news: a company announced making a deal with the major labels to provide DRM-free, ad-supported music. There's just one problem with that. Reuters reports that the Big 4 music labels have denied having any deal with Qtrax. Contrary to Qtrax's reports, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner had publicly denied that they had agreed to back the new Qtrax service. Universal Music, the largest of the group, said it also had not signed a deal for the new Qtrax service and is still in discussions. EMI Group said that while its song publishing unit has an agreement with Qtrax, its recorded music arm, EMI Music, does not. EMI Music, Sony BMG and Warner all previously had agreements with Qtrax, which was testing a paid music download service. Sources say those agreements expired in the last year and did not cover the new free, ad-supported model now being promoted by Qtrax. Qtrax did not immediately respond to further queries about its agreements with other companies."
They apparently licensed Songbird properly. So at least that bit isn't shady ...
Had they agreed to Qtrax's model, they would have effectively said that the music they provide has no direct value. It's only value would have been as a way to motivate people to view online ads.
As if this is any different from how the rest of the world works.
Radio stations that play your music make their money by - you guessed it - ADVERTISING! So do most television stations. While there are "viewer-supported" TV and radio stations, even these are guilty of weaving limited amounts of ads into their broadcasts.
Ads and music are hardly strangers. Of course, we as consumers get the opportunity to PAY to get to listen to your music whenever we want, without commercials. We currently have only three different tiers for the marketplace:
Tier 0: radio broadcasts, free.
Tier 1: pay-per-track via online purchasing, cheap.
Tier 2: full album purchases, either online or via CD. More expensive.
Are you telling me there's not room for another tier between 0 and 1, where people get to listen to music all they want in exchange for more invasive advertising and usage stat collection? I would personally like such a service, despite the fact that I buy dozens of CDs a year, because it's an opportunity to sample the album in high quality. To do this right now, you either have to break the law or put up with short clips / poor Youtube recordings.
And finally, if your band is so unique, I don't suppose you'd be proud enough of your work to tell us the damn name? I happen to enjoy prog rock.
Man is the animal that laughs.
And occasionally whores for Karma.