“The world’s biggest music companies, including Warner Music Group Corp and Sony BMG, denied that they have agreed to license songs for a free download service that was launched by Qtrax on Monday,” Yinka Adegoke reports for Reuters.
“Qtrax told Reuters and other media outlets last week that it had deals with the major labels representing about 75 percent of all music sales, to let users download songs for free in a new service to be supported by advertising revenue,” Adegoke reports.
“But by Monday, Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner had publicly denied that they had agreed to back the new Qtrax service,” Adegoke reports.
“A source close to Universal Music, the largest of the group, said it also had not signed a deal for the new Qtrax service and is still in discussions,” Adegoke reports. “And a source close to EMI Group said that while its song publishing unit has an agreement with Qtrax, its recorded music arm, EMI Music, does not.”
Full article here.
Humphrey Cheung reports for TG Daily, “It’s not often that we put ‘sucks bad’ in a title, but the beta Qtrax music player truly disappoints. After all the hype of allowing millions of freely playable songs, the so-called ‘Songbird’ beta program is excruciating slow, crashes often and doesn’t even offer any music.”
“But don’t be completely disappointed folks, at least Qtrax got the ads to work correctly,” Cheung reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Readers “Carl H.” and “Macaday” for the heads up.]
The whole thing is shaping up as the joke of the year so far. The Qtrax experience sounds positively Windows-like and — sheesh! — even Microsoft knows enough to get ink before they issue press releases and launch half-baked software.
It really does suck!
I actually installed the songbird a while ago and trashed it since I didn’t know what it was.
Reminds me of CherryOS – full of claims, little more.
Peace.
It’s based on Songbird which is only on ver 0.4. What a joke.
Come on guys; this thing is DOA. But we should be nice to the founders and the staff. Some of them really will lose their jobs and probably their life savings.
What I find funny is that the usual media and local neewspapers are still regurgitating the QTrx press releases about the wonders of this new service with no obvious research or checking the thing for themselves. My morning paper carried the press release almost verbatim today. LOL!
It was obvious to many people that this thing was DOA yesterday even when I was reading yesterday’s morning paper.
Free music that’s ad supported. Hmm. Isn’t there something called radio that does the same thing?
I never even “heard” of it, which is appropriate because there’s no music to be heard, apparently.
Ad-supported free downloads. And the hard-working artist who actually create the content get screwed over even more… I wonder how they would have been compensated.
SB called Quax!
@barks,
You nailed it.
Man, these people are hilarious. They jump on anything that’s an iTunes-killer or something that’s iPod-compatible. No due-diligence before running Qtrax’s press-release (or any other company’s press-release for that matter) is just foolish.
LOL… I bet thousands and thousand of Windows drones like ZuneTonguedInTheButt and those like him who frequent the two “gadget” web sites and constantly post negative diatribes on anything Apple signed up for this crap. Dangle anything free and cheap and they will come without though of the consequences that will haunt them. Isn’t that how drones think? LOL
“But we should be nice to the founders and the staff.”
No more kindness than to the gambler playing roulette that bets it all on black. At least it wasn’t billions of other people’s Euros.
@ ken1w,
“Say it ain’t so!” How could the RIAA merely wish to line corporate pockets? They’ve been so diligent at going after those rich, fascist-hippie, college students that all the artists much be rich from the settlements now, too. Right?
What annoys me the most is that I first read about this in our local newspaper , the Herald, and it took up about 24 column inches. In other words, a big story in a big city newspaper chain. You can bet it was printed verbatim from Q-trax press release.
Are all journalists dsck-heads? A simple phone call or two from the Head Office of Southern News to check facts could have prevented this.
We count on the news media to keep us connected to the rest of the world and it proves once again that a Journalism degree is a Play School level program. What’s wrong with proper degrees? Perhaps they would learn to think before they pull the trigger!
Oops. I meant Southam News. If they’re going to sue me for slander, perhaps I should get their name right.
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I knew it was a bad joke the minute they said all the majors were on board. Those music industry morons know only one thing; how to screw themselves and the listener so any “free” music would be only available with some kind of Sony-esque Rootkit or some other similar attempt.
never heard of QTRAX. Must be some kind of spam or scam thing. I hate how something from nothing can claim itself to be some kind of authority. It makes me sick.
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