As messages here implied, there seemed a lot wrong with the QTrax concept and it appears (from The Times) those doubts were deserved.

But it highlights the new situation - our industry is in serious turmoil and ready to be taken for a ride by anyone with a lot of money and a glib line in patter.

The entire internet world is a fantastic breeding ground for CRIME (as well as for a lot of great things) and the music industry is ripest of all for very dangerous scams.

It behoves us all to examine the value of copyrights and the importance of protecting art before we leap at "new models" that might just be old scams in new disguises.

Anyone want a Nigerian millionaire or two?

What's with the Nigerian slur ? As one with Nigerian roots i find it highly offensive.

Not all Nigerian millionaires are corrupt scammers JK you should know better.

The big Internet scam over here, KZ, involves Nigerian millionaires having died without leaving wills and the ability to collect a fortune (by paying a little please).

The whole thing reeks of more incompetence in the industry to me, promises are broken, deadlines are missed, bad decisions are made. When's it all going to end? It's gone from laughing stock to pitiful.

I know the scam but the only people who fall for the scam are greedy who want to rip off people third world countries. I hate the scammers and have no sympathy for the greedy gullible fools who fall for them.

It's the generalisation i didn't like. Imagine if I said "anyone fancy a gay paedo or two". Gay people will ' quite rightly' be up in arms about it.

Anyway, enough on this subject.
Bigger fish to fry.

And from Digital Music News today...

Qtrax is owned by Brilliant Technologies (BBLN.PK), a penny stock that enjoyed a big surge on Friday - and a major sell-off on Monday. At the bell, shares had fallen 43 percent to 0.0525, a cliff prompted by the non-deals. "There is a lot of concern that something is going on that nobody really understands," said one source, pointing to the possibility of a manipulated stock run-up.

And from WIRED

Qtrax, a division of Brilliant Technologies Corporation, saw its stock climb last week as it conducted a series of press briefings in advance of launching a P2P music service it said had full approval of the major record labels.
On Wednesday, the stock cost $0.06. By the time the market closed on Friday, it had broken $0.09, on the strength of anticipation about its announcement at Midem on Sunday.
Three cents a share may not be a lot for some stocks, but for a penny stock like this, it constitutes a gain of about 50 percent in just two days -- not a bad haul for whoever got in at the ground floor.
On Monday, word traveled that Qtrax had precisely zero major label agreements. The stock immediately dipped below $0.05, and currently hovers below $0.06. Someone may have made a great deal of money from the fluctuation.
Chatter about BLLN.PK (Brilliant Technologies' ticker symbol) had been increasing on at least one financial message board since late last month. The first post includes the sentence: "Media hype will push this way up next month."
I've asked Qtrax for a response these rumors, and will post an update if/when I hear back.

Update: An analyst friend checked the historical Qtrax prices. He says that on August 8 of 2007, Brilliant's stock was worth a penny. There was a spike in trading (10 million shares) on October 29th, which is the same day Qtrax made a presentation at the a DCIA Market Conference called P2P Advertising Upfront LA (cached version). Volumes increased more or less steadily through January, culminating in 46 million shares changing hands on Monday. Overall, he said that nothing looked particularly suspicious, other than the normal message board penny stock nonsense. He did have one thing to say about Qtrax's service though: "If something sounds too good to be true, it usually is."

Sounds like the dot.com boom all over again. It's almost laughable, but not quite.

Check this site for something a little more sustainable.

http://www.deezer.com/


M