Many filesharing news sites and media "experts" where made to look foolish today after a widely hyped ad-revenue powered "free music delivery system" failed to start its promised service..
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7213112.stmThree major record labels have denied signing deals allowing their music to feature on a new file-sharing service offering unlimited free downloads.
The service, Qtrax, boasted it would carry up to 30 million tracks from "all the major labels".
But Warner, EMI and Universal all say they have not licensed their music.
Qtrax aims to allow users to download music from the major labels for free, with advertising revenue used to pay licensing fees.
This of course being the BBC it seems the implications of this non starter are not discussed very widely, lets look at the hot bed of gossip that is Slycks
http://www.slyck.com/story1645_Major_Labels_Still_Have_no_Qtrax_DealThe name “Qtrax” may conjure up some memories. Qtrax was once called “Qtrax Maxx” during a brief time after Napster. Like many P2P start-ups, the company closed in reaction to the entertainment industry’s tireless campaign against unauthorized digital distribution. Yet the name managed to surface once again in a massive media blitz.
The mainstream media managed to eat up Qtrax’s press releases hook, line and sinker. Headlines championed the first “legal” P2P service, and credited the company with achieving a groundbreaking accomplishment.
Considering that Qtrax hasn’t launched, its technical details are still a bit muddled. What we do know is that it’s a Mozilla Firefox based client, which grabs music tracks from the Gnutella network. From there, it manages to protect each file with Microsoft DRM.
When midnight came and went without a launch, journalists and bloggers immediately smelled blood in the water. Has another dream of legal, industry endorsed P2P been shattered by reality? Did the major four record labels (Sony-BMG, Universal Music, EMI, and Warner Music) back out, or were they never really on board? As it turns out, currently NONE of the major 4 record labels are currently on board with Qtrax.
So there we have it folks no free licenced service just some old browser software that grabs music from the Gnutella network and ties it up with DRM, really useful eh when you can get the same files from any other Gnutella client without the digital locks, no doubt independent artists will be asking how this company thinks it has the right to sell copies of their works without their consent, this really is a non starter from day one, there really is no such thing as a free lunch when the big labels are involved.
