Major labels deny deals with free music service

 

Gallery

Posted on 28 Jan 2008 at 08:33

Music industry executives gathered in Cannes this week appear to have decided that their future lies in ad-supported free music, but a new service boasting to offer exactly that may not be all that it seems.

Qtrax launches in the ubiquitous "beta" form later today, claiming to have free content from all four of the major labels. In fact only Sony BMG has signed up. Warner Music issued firm denial in a statement reading that "as not authorised the use of our content on Qtrax's recently announced service".

Universal Music and EMI also denied that deals had been struck.

Qtrax had earlier launched the service with a claim that it was "fully embraced" by the music industry and would carry 30 million tracks from all the majors. But when it emerged that this was not the case, Allan Klepfisz, Qtrax's president and chief executive, admitted that agreements had not been signed.

He said that he believes a deal with Warner to be imminent, while EMI and Universal "have agreed on all terms" even if nothing has been signed.

While Qtrax's promise of free music is sure to be enticing, there are drawbacks to the service. DRM is deployed to prevent tracks from being burnt to CD and in some cases to restrict the number of times a track can be played before it has to be paid for. Users will also be shown an ad every time they begin downloading.

Qtrax said that its tracks would be playable on iPods, though it declined to say how this would be accomplished, since Apple's portable media players are only compatible with DRM-free tracks or with Apple's own, unlicensed DRM technology.

All that Klepfisz would say is that Apple has had no part in it, suggesting that Qtrax may have employed technology along the lines of Real's Harmony, which briefly enabled tracks from Real's Rhapsody store to be played on iPods. Apple quickly closed the Harmony loophole in 2005 and the technology has not been seen since.

Author: Simon Aughton