FREE LEGAL DOWNLOADING!?....... vol music industry "giants pull out" for now, =[

[tbone95860]

Well it looks like this may take a little while to come about, but lets hope it does.....

Looks like this story is just beginning.... let's hope it works out for all of our sakes!!

Last updated at 15:52pm on 28.01.08

Free music downloads site in chaos as record giants pull out...


Music fans around the world faced confusion today as it was announced they would be able to download unlimited, free songswithout breaking the law.

A revamped online file-sharing service had vowed to offer a catalogue of 30million free songs that are compatible withiPods, but record labels have denied they had granted permission to share the songs.

Qtrax, which makes its debut today, is the latest online music venture counting on the lure of free songs to draw in musicfans.

The key to their revolutionary venture was thought to be advertising, which they hope will pay the bills, namely recordcompany licensing fees.

The New York-based service was among several peer-to-peer file-sharing applications that emerged following the shutdown ofNapster, the pioneer service that enabled millions to illegally copy songs stored in other computers.

But Warner Music said it had not authorised the use of its tracks by Qtrax - and later Universal Music Groupand EMI followed suit, saying they did not have licensing deals with Qtrax and discussions were continuing.

Justin Kazmark, a spokesman for New York-based Qtrax, has declined to comment.

To take advantage of the free but legal service, the user will need to download the Qtrax software which displays advertswhile the user is searching and downloading songs.

The site was expected to feature special sections including one called "Last Night" where users can search fornewly added tracks from live concerts that were recorded the night before.

It will also feature music videos, artist documentaries, interviews, album reviews and biographies among otherfeatures.

Qtrax is not the first service to offer free songs for download with advertising support.

Last September, SpiralFrog launched an ad-supported free service with music from just one of the major record companiesUniversal Music. It is still in talks with other labels.

The latest version of Qtrax still lets users tap into file-sharing networks to search for music, but downloads come withcopy-protection technology known as digital-rights management, or DRM, to prevent users from burning copies to a CD and calculate how to share out advertisingsales with labels.

Qtrax downloads can be stored indefinitely on PCs and transferred on to portable music players,however.

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

iPods only play back unrestricted MP3s files or tracks with Apple's proprietary version of DRM, dubbedFairPlay.

CDs sales are falling and file-sharing companies are satisfying the demand for free music online

"We've had a technical breakthrough which enables us to put songs on an iPod without any interference fromFairPlay," said Allen Klepfisz, Qtrax's president and chief executive.

Klepfisz declined to give specifics on how Qtrax will make its audio files compatible with Apple devices, but noted that"Apple has nothing to do with it".

Qtrax downloads can be stored indefinitely on PCs and transferred onto portable music players.

Apple has been resistant in the past to license FairPlay to other online music retailers.

That stance has effectively limited iPod users to loading up their players with tracks purchased from Apple's iTunesMusic Store, or MP3s ripped from CDs or bought from vendors such as eMusic or Amazon.com.

Rob Enderle, technology analyst at the San Jose-based Enderle Group, said he expects Apple would take steps to block Qtraxfiles from working on iPods.

It's thought Apple would be unlikely to allow tracks downloaded from its rival to be compatible with itsplayers.

 

[craxyaznguy]

does this mean we can talk about it now?

 

[upt17th]

This cant be real

 

[wwsyndicate]

Interesting.

I can't help but to assume there is a catch.

 

[blai213]

this will backfire

 

[limitedretroog]

What's going on...???

 

[legit4life23]

they finally gave in, i guess its true " if you can't beat them, join em"

 

[youngdipset20]

After years of fighting peer-to-peer file-sharing companies, the major record labels have decided that if they can't beat them, they might as well join them -- in one case, anyway. At the Midem conference in Cannes, France, Qtrax announced deals with all the major music labels and publishers to offer the first free and legal ad-supported P2P service to include major label music.

"You can't change the attitudes and habits of what is now probably amounting to two generations who believe that music ought to be free on the internet," said Qtrax CEO Allan Klepfisz. "Those people are not going to be discouraged by Supreme Court decisions, they're not going to be discouraged by technological interference. Ultimately, what will discourage them is a demonstratively better service."

Klepfisz pegs the service's catalog at more than 25 million songs, which would dwarf those of iTunes and other online music stores. The songs will be wrapped in Microsoft's Windows Media subscription DRM. This means that unlike the free, ad-supported services offered by imeem and Last.fm, Qtrax's songs can be downloaded onto compatible players. The application is based on the Songbird engine, so sharing and downloading occurs within a Firefox browser -- no separate application required.

As of now, the tracks are not compatible with the Apple iPod, but Klepfisz said that the service would be compatible with iPods before too long -- an indication that Apple could apply the subscription technology developed for iTunes movie rentals to the music market.

To get the industry on board with P2P, Qtrax signed over "the lion's share of revenue" to labels and publishers, paying out on per-download and per-play bases. The site also categorized the music of the world into three lists. One list includes artists who do not permit their music to be made available online in any capacity. "The blacklist is fast disappearing -- my prediction is that in a year, the blacklist won't be in existence," said Klepfisz. The white list consists of the standard digital catalogs from major and indie labels -- the same 5-million-plus songs that are on iTunes.

The gray list constitutes the difference between what's available on iTunes and what's available on BitTorrent. "Then you have the gray list, which is that vast body of stuff that's out there on P2P, where there are rights holders, but the rights holders themselves may not even know that a song is being downloaded frequently.... To the best of our ability, we identify the rights holder and pay them a percentage of the advertising revenue. In the minority of cases where we can't identify a rights holder, we will actually put up the song for claiming, and will reserve the portion of the ad pie until that song is appropriately claimed." As with other free, ad-supported services, revenue comes from advertisers who want to target ads to specific types of listeners.

Advertisers have long understood the power of music to move product, and some have developed specific music strategies for working with new services such as Qtrax, according to Klepfisz. But without the labels' sign-off on this service, a sanctioned P2P service of this size never would have been possible.

With these deals, the labels have demonstrated openness toward revenue streams that deviate from the record-store model.

"This is a tacit acknowledgment that 'bulletproof' wasn't working," said IDC consumer audio analyst Susan Kevorkian. "And it hasn't been working. But it was an experiment the music industry needed to undertake in order to figure out how to address digital distribution. It was a very long learning process, but fortunately there's still the possibility of finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow."

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/01/major-labels-al.html

 

[ghettokrnxxx]

Wow this is great news now i can download whatever i want

without worrying

 

[javier5857]

 

[championhood]

looks like meth and da rest of da admins can leave da music forum alone for good

 

[tkay dot]

 

[javier5857]

why cant i download the software yet? its past midnight??

 

[upt17th]

http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23121740-5014239,00.html

THREE of the "big four" record labels have reportedly denied signing any deals with free music download service Qtrax.

Qtrax had promised up to 30 million free and legal music tracks for download after claiming it had signed landmark deals with the four major recordlabels Sony BMG, Warner Music, EMI and Universal.

The company's promise sounded too good to be true - an advertising-funded service that had no hidden software, limited copy-protection that letyou listen to tracks on any computer or mp3 player, and a massive library of songs from the major labels.

Now Warner Music has issued a statement denying that it authorised any of its content for use on the Qtrax network.



EMI and Universal also denied a licensing deal with Qtrax despite being in discussions with the company. Sony could not be reached forcomment.

Qtrax president Allan Klepfisz told AP that Warner was expected to agree to terms "shortly". He claimed that all other parties had agreedto the terms but some deals were yet to be formally signed.

Qtrax is a peer-to-peer (P2P) network that originally launched in 2002 following the collapse of Napster. It shut down a few months later to avoidlegal action.

P2P users can share files, or portions of a file, directly with other users. The decentralised network structure makes it popular amongst illegalfile-sharers due to its speed, efficiency and relative anonymity.

Legal music tracks are often crippled by digital rights management (DRM), a form of encoding intended to restrict how the file is used.

Qtrax offered to combine legal P2P networking with a more flexible form of DRM.

The Qtrax client was expected to launch at 12am EST (4pm AEST) today but the download appears to have been delayed.

It is not clear what content will be made available on the network.

 

[the big homey]

WAIT

Qtrax, which was five years in the making, is not currently compatible with the iPod player, but there are plans for an "iPod solution".

 

[tbone95860]

Universal & Warner are being punks about it!

They need to just give up & join this!

I mean if the artists get a cut of the pay based on the number of downloads, that seems pretty damn fair to me!

Man this story is just beginning but lets all hope that this is will take a turn for the best!

 

[championhood]

Originally Posted by TBONE95860


Universal & Warner are being punks about it!

They need to just give up & join this!

I mean if the artists get a cut of the pay based on the number of downloads, that seems pretty damn fair to me!

Man this story is just beginning but lets all hope that this is will take a turn for the best!

word, imagine if youtube hits made them cats money too...music guys just gotta sign on and play ball.

 

[youngdipset20]

Originally Posted by The Big Homey

WAIT

Qtrax, which was five years in the making, is not currently compatible with the iPod player, but there are plans for an "iPod solution".

why you mad for? its not like thats the only way to get music

 

[the big homey]

why you mad for? its not like thats the only way to get music

u right

but u know whos really gonna be mad apple this is death to itunes

 

[youngdipset20]

Originally Posted by The Big Homey

why you mad for? its not like thats the only way to get music

u right

i say in bout a week..some geek is gonna make a converter so it can go on the ipod

 

[presequel]

wait, so it had all 4 majors agreed on, then the day before its supposed to launch, 3/4 bail out, with the 4th one not giving an official response yet?

sounds like its already failed...

 

[ii flash ii]

Hopefully it falls through... And most likely someone will get around not being able to put the songs onto the ipod... Well lets hope

 

[ac4three]

Hmmm...

 

[tbone95860]

I like this idea though...... this seems fair & a good solution to so many people downloading music ANYWAY.


"As part of the deal artists, record companies and publishers will be paid in proportion to how popular their songs are.They will also get a cut of advertising revenue."

 

[face murda]

Suspended.