If this service lives up to the hype, the record (selling) industry has just announced it's wake !

www.qtrax.com/

It looks like just another p2p network service like bittorrent or limewire, i read the legal part and it says the software ITSELF is free but QTAX are not responsible for the content of what people share.
Granted its pretty glitzy looking though.

Someone, somewhere is going to have to sort out a P2P royalty share system for these wretched things, one can only hope maybe its this one, this time.
There are less and less jobs in the industry with a wage attached in a scary blueprint for the future.

Mart

This is the FIRST system that is backed by all 4 major labels - and they have agreed royalty payments (out of advertising income).

Read the Press section for the relevant Press Releases/

HisWestiness wrote:
It looks like just another p2p network service like bittorrent or limewire, i read the legal part and it says the software ITSELF is free but QTAX are not responsible for the content of what people share.
Granted its pretty glitzy looking though.

Qtrax only allows the user to download tracks that are authorised by the appropriate labels.

See Channel 4 News report on this - http://www.channel4.com/player/v2/player.jsp?showId=10870

Cheers for clearing that up ITK, I only glimpsed through it earlier.

I interviewed a young band last night(who were very good actually) and they said that their ambition was to be found on Limewire.
I assumed they were joking, but they informed me that it was where they found all their music and wanted to be a part of it.

Anything has to stop this view in the young up and coming musicians and has to stop it now.

Mart get used to a new golden age as far as music consumption is concerned.

We7 guarantee each label or artist 5p per download and they take care of the mechanicals as well. Imagine if you are managing a band, why would you sign a record deal ? Marketing ? No longer necessary to use a major for that.

The implication of free ad sponsored music is going to be more dramatic than iTunes in the next few years.
All you would need to do to get your downloads would be a strategic online marketing campaign (google ?) and because there is nothing to lose as far as the user is concerned then they will download away.

Oh guess what will now be the premium product ?

Physicals

Kit/vinyl/DVD bundle, sold at a premium.

Notice how i said kit and not t-shirt. Premium designed custom made clothes worn by the band will now become de riguer as like football jerseys they become something to identify yourself with.

So much for the revolution !

The website now says -

Due to overwhelming demand, Qtrax.com is currently unavailable. Please check back in 24 hours to download the first, free, and legal P2P music application. Thank you for your understanding.

After the news from Midem (so other thread) this is no surprise.

It seems that the QTrax announcement was a trifle premature.

As I say in the other thread, I cannot quite see where the income comes from or goes to - and how much.

I'm rapidly feeling that music is now regarded as a free product to be enjoyed and, like it or not (I don't), we will all have to make our money from the associated spin offs - gig income, sponsorship, branding, shirts, posters, commercial use etc.

Can we have some perspective please. All the hysteria around Qtrax and others like it is getting a bit out of hand now.

If you look back into the history of recorded music, there has always been more people who listen for free than buyers. That will never change. The difference is that the billions of listens via p2p has not been monetised by the industry until now. What they are trying to do and SHOULD have done 10 years ago was to create a one stop solution for FREE music whereby music fans could download and stream music free of charge.

The web is too wide and vast and there is not one single solution, so the argument that labels have been doing it on their websites for years does not work.

The public wanted a simple solution that worked. Napster was this solution but the fools who decided to shut it down destroyed the one opportunity they had and the net result is the carnage we are seeing in the music industry.

Hope you can sleep at night whoever you are.

Now belatedly and after the sons and daughters of Napster have been unleashed does the industry finally wake up to this fact. They could have done this at anytime in the internet's history.

When people said that there was no money in advertising guess who popped up and proved them wrong ? Google.

Now I am hearing the same questions being asked and people moaning about the royalty rates. "Dudes you aren't getting anything from p2p now".

It is the same insecurity that gave birth to DRM. Oh how IT companies must be laughing at the music industry. You didn't need a brain to know this was never going to work. But the industry insisted and well to be fair to the IT guys, wouldn't you take the money and run ?

Qtrax will NEVER eat into sales. If anything it will wean people off p2p but not until the next 10 years.
p2p, torrents, rapidshare and the like are far too entrenched on the internet.

My advice is sign up for it because 5c per download is better than nil that you're getting now and it can only get more better as advertisers begin to spend online. The money will come from TV advertisers who will move from advertising on TV to the right targeted demographic online. Considering the amount of music on TV is vritually non existent this can only be a good thing for the music industry.

Majors backing out already?

http://www.thediymethod.com/

Interesting post on The Velvet Rope...

* Users will have to download a proprietary program, built on the open source Songbird platform. The program is QTrax's all-in-one search engine, player and revenue generator. You'll have to download songs via the software, and play them on the software, which is where the service will serve up display ads. It will give the labels about two-thirds of each dollar of ad revenue it generates -- essentially the same split that AAPL offers now for its download sales. If you're an anti-DRM fanatic, you can stop reading here - the downloads will have a DRM wrapper.

*QTrax says all four major labels are on board, but the labels says that's not the case. Warner Music Group (WMG) says it doesn't have a deal with the service, and a person close to the company says Universal Music Group, the world's biggest music label, is talking to QTrax but hasn't signed anything. If QTrax can't solve its licensing problem, everything else is moot.

*The service is PC-only, but QTrax says it will have a Mac version available by March 18th. It says its player will be allow you to import all of your existing music, including music purchased on iTunes or other services.

*The killer: QTrax songs can't be played on iPods, which means it's at best a complementary service for most people. QTrax says that will change "eventually", but since Apple has zero interest in opening up its closed system and has fought furiously against other attempts, we're not betting on it.


Comment:

Steve said:January 27, 2008 8:59 AM... Ha! Well we will see if Qtrax can save its parent company - which is what they are betting on. Brilliant Technologies looking for the hail mary on this launch. Here are a few things i found on Brilliant...

-The company has not filed a timely report with the SEC since its June 06 ending quarter.
-The latest 10QSB was for the quarter ending March 31, 2007
-Company has made $9,862 (that's nine thousand)dollars in revenue since inception in 1999. No revenues were made for the quarter ending March 31 for both years 2007 and 2006.
- Net loss of $1.25M for 3 months ending 3/31/07
-$52.4M net loss since inception
-Burn-rate was about $1.3M for the quarter ending 3/31/07
-Has $340K in cash as of 3/3/1/07.

That is a lot to make up for!

ITK is NOT In The Know when it comes to "techy" things ... and I'm slightly concerned that I'll have to download this new (Mozilla type) browser?

Does this replace Internet Explorer for all uses?
Are there advantages / disadvantages to that?

Ah, Mozilla came with this new station here last week and also it came with the option of having it as a default browser or not. Explorer is also on here, and still works, but once youve moved to Firefox, you dont really want to go back, its worth downloading.

Thanks Mart

I see the nervous are already poo pooing Qtrax and once again their logic baffles me.

I think it is time to clear out the old farts in charge of the music business because they cannot follow a logical thought.

It will be staggering if the majors don't start backing FREE music services. Quite frankly I am watching from afar as the city burns and collapses. The point is, p2p is the way forward for marketing and a major own goal was scored by the industry for not embracing it.

A schoolboy would have spotted where we are today with Billions of music being traded for free and let's not go down the 'moral' argument road. Downloaading music is NOT like stealing a bike and even if it were from the record industry ? The biggest robbers of all, according to many.

No one sympathises with a thief if he gets robbed and this is what has happened to the music industry in the eyes of many.

As far as the new FREE standard, I think we should all start to pay Peter Gabriel a visit with his new We7 service.

Let me remind you all. OD2 were the first major download provider (yes i know wippit preceeded them) but OD2 were the first major commercial entity. iTunes followed. Enough said.

iTunes was sexy and had a sexy hardware to link the music to. What do the suits do ? They want to run Steve Jobs out of business.

Imagine this scenario. Steve Jobs does NOT need iTMS. The music industry needs iTMS. As the iPod diversifies and as wireless Internet takes hold WHY should Steve Jobs care about iTMS ? The iTouch can now stream wirelessly to every single music website. Now imagine this, the next generation of iPod will have a built in wireless internet modem inbuilt. No more need to download anything.

Is Qtrax necessary ? Yes but maybe not this incarnation.

We7 only has alot of wannabes - not actually music that anyone wants !

Ignorance is bliss ITK and this sort of dismissive attitude is frankly just a bit lazy. Go and look into the site now and do some research and you will find that you are mistaken. They are doing deals with the Indies now and they do have V2 on board.

As for your comments no one really wants the music on there, yeah sure that's why they have just done a million downloads.

Frankly i don't know why I bother sometimes. Let's just keep moaning about the lack of sales and all the negative but when someone tries to do something constructive let's just poo poo it. It's 2003 all over again.

ps: Wouldn't call Bananarama wannabes though.

From the user's point of view... "What's in it for me?"