New free music site launches today ( and it's legal!)

New free music site launches today ( and it's legal!)

www.msnbc.msn.com

A revamped online file-sharing service aims to woo legions of music fans by offering unlimited, free song downloads that are compatible with iPods, and all with the blessing of major recording companies.

Qtrax, which makes its debut Sunday, is the latest online music venture counting on the lure of free music to draw in music fans and on advertising to pay the bills, namely record company licensing fees.

The service, which boasts a selection of up to 30 million tracks, also promises that its music downloads will be playable on Apple Inc.'s iPods and Macintosh computers as early as March.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Apple is up in arms about this one. I have a feeling this site is too good to be true, and it will be shut down by June. I tried to get on the site, but it says the server has crashed, and that the site will officialy be put up again tommorw (1/28).

www.msnbc.msn.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

This is a quote from an article on the International Herald Tribune:

But "free" is relative. Its tracks will not be free of software restrictions that would limit their usefulness to consumers; Qtrax would not detail the limits Sunday.

Ah Ha. So maybe it is too good to be true. I'll be checking this site out tommorw to see if it's the real deal.

The problem these types of services generally have (think napster) is that if the song can be played then it can be converted into a drm free format, removing any restrictions that the company may have placed on it.

I'd be interested to know if they've somehow found a way to prevent this from happening.

Digital Rights Management is dead for purchasing music, Ad Supported music will not be too far behind. This is a legit service and it's not the only one either.

blog.wired.com...

They've finally seen the light. It cost QTrax the majority of the revenue though.

Originally posted by sardion2000
They've finally seen the light. It cost QTrax the majority of the revenue though.

The day that p2p was developed was the day that the recording industry should have recognized that their hold on the music industry was slipping. Napster was the shot across the bow. All that the recording industry could do was to try to stem the tide by shutting Napster down. But, as we all know, there have been dozens of other p2p sites eager to take it's place.

Then the record companies tried to badger and scare music lovers into "compliance" by starting a series of well publicized law suits against those who had downloaded music. While this might have served to dissuade some, the losses felt by the record companies clearly demonstrated that simple scare tactics were not enough.

I have yet to see QTrax ... it is still unavailable at the time of this post .... but it fits a model that should have been used by the record companies right from the start: "Free Music through the use of advertising revenues". The "old school" desk jockey's in the record industry just didn't seem to "get it". They just didn't seem to understand the power and the potential of the internet. They tried to fight what they didn't understand and this, in many cases, backfired. At least this time, with this business model; free downloadable music for the fans and licensing revenue for the record companies from advertising, it looks like they finally got it right.

Let's just wait and see what QTrax is really all about. But I have to admit, it looks promising.

Unless im missing something I cant see this site being very popular while Limewire, Kazaa or Torrents are already out there. The only difference is that Qtrax is legal, but honestly who's gonna choose this over the others (especially Torrents), when you cant even burn them to cd, and putting them on to an ipod is still questionable. I cant see it taking off really.

specialy with the special code you can enter into search engines to pull up mp3 directories lol.

You cant stop the flow of digital data, unless you stop the flow.


Freedom of imformation act is where its at!

apparently, they don't have signed deals with all (or any) of the big music publishing houses. It seems they have agreements but no signed contracts. Warners announced this today.

Downloading "free music" notwithstanding, I have to say that I found
Q Trax to be a very attractive piece of software. It has a very clean, crisp look and, to be frank, it has some interesting functionality. If you don't want to bother to use it for, well, anything -- it's still worth a look. It kind of reminds me of a "buffed up" WinAmp. Of course, this isn't a surprise as the same people who brought you WinAmp seem to be behind Q Trax.