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Music Labels say No Deal with Qtrax

Posted by Zonk on from the so-close-and-yet-so-far dept.

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."

7 of 58 comments (clear)

  1. it sounds like the only thing Qtrax has by thrillseeker · · Score: 4, Funny

    is audio of a fat lady singing

  2. Qtrax is a hoax to gather e-mail addresses by lemmen · · Score: 4, Interesting

    According to Dutch "shock-log" Geenstijl it seems the software is only being used to gather e-mail addresses and not downloading music. View the story at http://www.geenstijl.nl/mt/archieven/1181231.html

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    Daxy's Networking Blog
  3. Sketchy by OneMHz · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This was either a move by Qtrax to generate a burst of ad revenue from an influx of users or they're trying to force the labels' hands by making the announcement. So, when the customers ask why the music isn't there, they're asking the labels, not Qtrax. Either way, it's sketchy.

    1. Re:Sketchy by badasscat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This was either a move by Qtrax to generate a burst of ad revenue from an influx of users or they're trying to force the labels' hands by making the announcement.

      The real question in my mind is why nearly all of the mainstream press played along. QTrax obviously blasted out a press release, and without doing any fact-checking at all it seems like the story was reprinted on Reuters, the AP, CNN, MSNBC, the Drudge Report, and of course Slashdot, among others.

      Not that media manipulation is anything new, but it is still a constant source of amazement to me when a company like this that is obviously just a big scam - not to mention nothing new even if it was real (anyone remember SpiralFrog?) - gets such immediate and widespread positive press among both mainstream and hardcore news outlets.

      If you ask me, the news orgs have more egg on their face than QTrax does.

  4. Deal or No Deal by PirateBlis · · Score: 4, Funny

    In a recent interview, Sony Spokesperson, Tom Luciano, had this to say: "We're not in any agreement or approval of Qtrax. Mainly because we have a similar product that we're already releasing to the public, aptly titled Rootkit."

  5. I'd like to be the first to say... by MrNemesis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    ...pump'n'dump, but someone's bound to have gotten there before me. How much do you bet this whole thing was planned from the start?

    http://blogs.cnet.com/8301-13526_1-9859255-27.html

    There's someone pimping the stock in the comments there. Oddly enough, the site he links to is an analyst firm with a front page consisting entirely of... Qtrax pimpage http://www.positionmakers.com/

    Mmm, smell the astroturf.

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    Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
  6. I downloaded QTrax... by PinchDuck · · Score: 4, Interesting

    and was amazed to find that it was Songbird. And though the GPL was prominently acknowledged, there was also a part of the licensing agreement that says I won't distribute the downloaded client. I'm pretty sure that the stipulation is a violation of the GPL in the first place, in that you aren't allowed to place any downstream restrictions on GPL'd software. You can view their catalog, but you can't play it and can't download music. So they have no music, their client (as far as I can tell) is distributed using a license already in breach, and the only ad I ever saw was for a samsung telephone. Their server completely crapped out last night. Continuing their tactic of marketing one piece of software as another, the broken server claimed to be an Oracle web server, but the error message sure as hell looked like it was generated in Apache. Yeah, I know that the BSD license allows that, but it made me chuckle. I think QTrax is going to go away very soon.