Free Music Oops

Qtrax announced that they were offering 25 million song downloads, all nicely free and legal. Made a big splash, as you can imagine. Right before the rest of the people involved in the deal said, "Oh, no, they aren't."


Here's how it was supposed to work, according to Ashley at CyberNet News.

Compensating artists would work as follows: Because users are required to use a special application, when you download and play the music, Qtrax can keep track. Money earned from the ads that you’d see in the application are then divvied out to the artists which you listen to for their work.

Sarah Perez further explained what all the excitement was about in Qtrax Launches: Free and Legal Music Downloads Have Arrived:

What's most important about Qtrax's launch is the changed mentality of the record labels' vision for the online music marketplace. Having them realize that they must offer free music in order to compete with industry behemoths like iTunes, is a promising step in the right direction.

And free music doesn't have to be the disaster labels have always thought. Says Qtrax chief Allan Klepfisz, "the idea of free music is not so radical. Commercial radio and free-to-air television is paid for by advertisers and available for free to consumers."

It is in Qtrax' favor that they found a way to compensate artists while still providing free music. But the story isn't over.

Qtrax supposedly had all four major music labels on board and were ready to start sending free music your way. It wasn't going to be compatible with an iPod, but all the gimmie-free-music people thought they'd found Nirvana (no, not the band Nirvana, although that might happen, too).

The golden aura surrounding Qtrax vanished quickly, and reports like Qtrax Backtrax Over Deals by Claudine Beaumont of The Telegraph started appearing.

It seems despite Qtrax's claims that it would carry about 25 million songs from "all the major record labels", Warner, EMI and Universal all say that no deal has been struck with Qtrax and that they have not licensed their music to the new service. Sony has not commented on any deals it may or may not have signed with the website.

It's an embarrassing blow for Qtrax, which was officially unveiled at the Midem music conference in Cannes this morning. The president of Qtrax, meanwhile, says that terms have been agreed with all the labels, but that some deals have not been formally signed.

Oops. Guess there aren't 25 million free and legal songs after all. Georgia Harper at ©ollectanea commented,

[I]t may only be a matter of time, as Qtrax' president suggests, but still, the degree of misrepresentation throws the company's entire story into doubt...

This isn't just a battle between iTunes and Qtrax. Amazon is also a player. They've been selling DRM-free music for some time at Amazon. According to Media Law Prof Blog, edited by Christine A. Corcos,

Music Downloads With No Copy Protection? Not Quite Yet. In spite of an announcement from Qtrax saying that it has clinched agreements with three major labels to do so, Warner, EMI, and Universal say they have no plans to allow the company to permit users to download their music for free through its service. Meanwhile, Amazon.com is proceeding with its digital music store, which lets customers download music without worrying about copy protection.

Amazon originally offered the DRM-free music only in its US store, but it's now opening it up to other countries.

In my opinion, creative people who produce music, art, and words for public consumption own their product (the music, art, and words) and should be paid for it. The digital dilemma is that it's so easy to steal digital music, art and words that people begin to think they're entitled to steal it. If Qtrax has a way, radio-like, to play music free while supporting the artists involved with ads, good for them. But jumping the gun and bragging that their great new idea is good to go before it's a reality doesn't do them any good. I doubt if their advertisers are very happy about this either.