p2pnet - rss feed: Qtrax ‘free, legal’ music debacle
p2pnet news | Music:- Online music rules.
The trouble is, Warner Music, EMI, Vivendi Universal and Sony BMG aren’t making any money out of it, least wise, not enough to make them happy.
So when the ‘news’ hit that the deal had been struck between corporate ‘p2p file sharing’ application Qtrax and the members of the Big 4 organised music gang, at the same time ringing the death knell for CDs, it generated a mind boggling amount of attention .
Free ‘legal’ music !?!?
Like it isn’t free already. That’s the trouble, say the Big 4. And legal? Still very much a matter of debate, the mult-imillion dollar Big 4 PR blitz that it isn’t notwithstanding.
DRM-loaded Qtrax was supposed to generate enough hard cash from advertising associated with downloads to pay the Big 4 because according to Allan Klepfisz (right), the man who runs it, the major labels were on stream.
The trouble was, they weren’t.
Was this a cold and calculated lie on the part of Klepfisz; a con designed to stoke them into making a commitment? Was it shady trickery calculated to get people to the site and suck in the ever gullible (as far as the Big 4 are concerned) mainstream media into providing priceless free online advertising? Certainly, Qtrax tried a cheap trick, looking for free advance promo from p2pnet by posting tacky comments supposedly from readers in advance of the launch. It didn’t work with us, but perhaps the company had more success with others.
Or was it all acceptable hooplah —- Klepfisz jumping the gun a little, no big deal and no harm done?
Whichever it was, today the headlines aren’t nearly so rapturous as they were yesterday.
“Music file-share site Qtrax forced into humiliating U-turn,” says Britain’s Times Online. “Qtrax ‘free music’ launch a dud,” says news.com.au in Australia.
Says Times Online:
A website which promised to give music lovers the world’s first legal file-sharing service was forced into a humiliating climbdown today after it emerged that the company had not secured the backing of the record industry.
Qtrax, a New York firm, unveiled its service with a glitzy £500,000 launch in Cannes at the weekend, hiring stars including James Blunt, LL Cool J.
Today it emerged that none of the four major labels had done deals with the site, putting a large dent in the promised catalogue of 25 million songs and prompting allegations that the site’s founders had misled fans.
And, “The company had claimed it would have up to 30 million tracks available upon launch,” says news.com.au. But, “There are currently over 9 million tracks listed on the net
work, none of which can apparently be downloaded.
“Within hours of launch the number of Qtrax users online had passed 8000, not quite reflecting the ‘massive response’ claimed by the company.”
Now, “All of this points to signs of trouble for Qtrax, whose business model changed sometime last year from being an ad-supported way to encourage users to pay for music, to being an ad-supported way to deliver totally free music,” says Ars Technica, adding:
“Originally, Qtrax’s DRM would have only given users so many ad-supported plays before a song would need to be purchased (think Zune sharing). We can only speculate, but the move to providing totally free downloadable music without ticking timebombs likely gave the labels pause.
“If Qtrax could pull it off, it’d be quite a coup. Getting the Big Four labels to agree that any music downloaded from the Gnutella P2P network is legit if it’s wrapped in DRM for the purposes of pushing ads would mark quite a change.
“It would, in effect, legitimize P2P for the labels, who would begin making money directly off of P2P activity.”
However, “Given the current climate about ISP filtering, bandwidth caps, and the like, perhaps this idea is trying to gain traction at the wrong time.”
Stay tuned.
Also See:
they weren’t - Sony BMG: No Qtrax deal, January 28, 2008
ringing the death knell - Qtrax - ‘death knell’ for CDs, January 28, 2008
Times Online - Music file-share site Qtrax forced into humiliating U-turn, January 28, 2008
news.com.au - Qtrax ‘free music’ launch a dud, January 29, 2008
Ars Technica - Qtrax’s free, legal P2P scheme is vaporware for now, January 28, 2008
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- ‘free
January 29th, 2008 at 7:43 am
At least while I wait on a client that at this moment has aprox.15, 963 *users* online doing nothing, Qtrax is hardly the only option for free and yes *legal* music. The lowly SpiralFrog iwht aprox 1 Million more songs than Qtrax works just fine. Not to mention the other hundreds of ways to get free music.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:26 am
testing 123
January 29th, 2008 at 8:28 am
http://www.libraryplanet.com/2006/09/14/spiralfrog
” The (big) downside here is that the music at SpiralFrog will be wrapped in strange DRM that requires regular logging in the the ad driven SpiralFrog service in order for the music files to continue playing. Standard DRM of limited devices, copies and Windows only applies as well. Some people say it’s still a big step because it’s free music, I (and others) question the technical coercion and wish there was some better way to do it. – Marshall Kirkpatrick ”
I can’t ‘Feel Good’ about downloading a track that I can’t use as I wish,
can’t ‘feel good’ about being treated as a criminal from the start,
can’t ‘feel good’ knowing that the artist isn’t really the one benefitting from
this industry controlled service anyway.
January 29th, 2008 at 8:32 am
What would save concepts like Sprial and Q ??
NO drm whatsoever.
Variable pricing according to bitrate.
People WOULD pay for such a service , I guarantee it.
How can I guarantee it ?
Someone already did it, and people paid .. a lot.
The ease and choice AND the ability to do what they wanted with their
purchase made it worth it.
The labels were too stupid to embrace it, and chose to sue it out of existence
January 29th, 2008 at 8:34 am
sorry bout the double posting Jon.
These were originally one single post and it refused to go through.
By splitting it up it went through .. any idea why ?
January 29th, 2008 at 8:40 am
Sorry. No idea. Haven’t heard of that before.
Cheers!
January 29th, 2008 at 8:53 am
there must be an intrest in seeing qtrax work by some people. the users on the client keep going up as of now 17, 053 and no downloads availble yet. when i took my first screenshot on monday morning there were about 250 users.
January 29th, 2008 at 9:14 am
17, 053?
wow
January 29th, 2008 at 11:28 am
17,053 .. impressive.
In 2006 It is estimated that AllofMp3 took in 30 million us dollars.
People PAID hand over fist for DRM free product.
Part of that revenue was paid as required by russian law to their
artists collective society so the artists could be paid.
Essentially competing very well with free.
Had a mechanism in place to pay artists.
Why do you not address this viable, PROVEN, model which not only gets the
artists paid, but gives the CUSTOMER WHAT THEY WANT ?
DRM free tracks they can do exactly what they wish with ?
January 29th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Lets do some math ..
I went to this article
http://www.p2pnet.net/story/14184
for this example. Mind you this is downloads for a WEEK.
Fergie .. Big Girls Don’t Cry … 2,247,427 downloads
Downloaded for free.
Bad.
Lets use the all of MP3 model at approx .03 per meg of data.
An average 4 minute 128k tune is approx 4 mb i am just going to apply that to
the fergie tune ( might be a little more or less ).
8,989,708 mb downloaded times 3 cents per mb
$ 269,691.24 for one WEEK for one song.
A part of this depending on the deal goes to the label.
per week.
People WANT DRM free and convenience and WILL pay for it.
They DID pay for it.
Why wasn’t it good enough ?
January 30th, 2008 at 7:25 am
I would love a iTunes store that had allofmp3 prices and options and riaa/cria aproval or the labels aproval. dirt cheap mp3’s and no DRM. that’s more unlilely than qtrax.
January 30th, 2008 at 7:35 am
” dirt cheap mp3’s and no DRM ”
Enough CUSTOMERS wanted it to spend 30 million dollars in one year,
PROVING that it is possible to compete with free.
It PROVES that customer will pay if they are supplied with what they want,
instead of going with the ‘free’ option.
Can you admit that as well ?
” that’s more unlilely than qtrax. ”
And that’s a shame, and all because of the labels greed.
Not because it won’t make money.
January 30th, 2008 at 7:38 am
I would rather pay if I can afford it than look at ads. Thats why I have at times usesd
subscription services of Napster, Yahoo and iMesh.
When I am short on money ad supported subscriptions are nice to have as a back up.
January 30th, 2008 at 7:43 am
I ask again ….
” dirt cheap mp3’s and no DRM ”
Enough CUSTOMERS wanted it to spend 30 million dollars in one year,
PROVING that it is possible to compete with free.
It PROVES that customer will pay if they are supplied with what they want,
instead of going with the ‘free’ option.
Can you admit that as well ?
You don’t seem to want to directly address this .
January 30th, 2008 at 7:54 am
How many times do this subscription based models have to fail
before someone admits that they won’t work.
Why so some so nauseatingly cling to things that will not work.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:47 am
The reason I like subscriptions is I don’t want to pay .99 for every song I want to listen to.
Lot’s of times if I want to play guitar with some new songs I don’t want to buy them just to play them 2-3 times and decide I don’t want to listen to them again. If there are multiple versions of the same song by differnt artists I can listen to all of them and try them out with a subscription instead of buying them only to play them once or only half of the song.
I would ultimately prefer an opt in ISP tax to download with a P2P client in the MP3 format
unlimited music and have them scrap the blank media levy.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:53 am
” The reason I like subscriptions is I don’t want to pay .99 for every song I want to listen to. ”
You’re still refusing to answer this , and I wonder why …
” ” dirt cheap mp3’s and no DRM ”
Enough CUSTOMERS wanted it to spend 30 million dollars in one year,
PROVING that it is possible to compete with free.
Doesn’t this PROVE that customer will pay if they are supplied with what they want,
instead of going with the ‘free’ option. ??
Why not answer this directly ??
January 30th, 2008 at 9:01 am
” ” The reason I like subscriptions is I don’t want to pay .99 for every song I want to listen to. ”
Nor should you.
If the market were really in control and not a colluding cartel of labels, competition
might create other lower prices.
I must admit, i’m also pretty interested in why you won’t
directly address the proof of success shown by the all of mp3 model.
It certainly was cheap enough and obviously worked very well against
the free competition. It’s really wierd how you ignor the successful model.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:04 am
susscessful Yes! legal? not quite apparently. do buisness with the russian mafia? not big on that.
the prices? great!
January 30th, 2008 at 9:09 am
” susscessful Yes! legal? not quite apparently. ”
Good, we got that out of you, I am not going to debate the legality, it was legal in
russia, since they paid to russian collectives.
” do buisness with the russian mafia? not big on that. ”
Huh ?
Doing business with an american mafia is better I suppose.
I’d love to see the sources that back up that accusation.
So you agree it was successful .. now the other part you refuse to address ,,
Doesn’t this PROVE that customer will pay if they are supplied with what they want,
instead of going with the ‘free’ option. ??
You’re really going out of your way to avoid answering this.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:21 am
” do buisness with the russian mafia? ”
now that’s just funny.
whats next ?
P2P = funding the terrorists ?
P2P = haven for kiddie porn ?
C’mon .. let’s leave the unsupported bull crap out of this.
until that sentence, it was actually looking like a mature productive debate.
January 30th, 2008 at 9:46 am
“Doesn’t this PROVE that customer will pay if they are supplied with what they want,
instead of going with the ‘free’ option. ??”
If people can AFFORD to pay for what they want instead of adsupported free most would PAY, I think. For those who CAN’t afford to pay or are to young to have a credit card or paypal account ect. ad supported free is a good alternative.
January 30th, 2008 at 10:06 am
” If people can AFFORD to pay for what they want instead of adsupported free most would PAY, I think. ”
Ok,
still avoiding the issue.
Let me be more specific.
Doesn’t the incredible financial success of the allofmp3 model prove that people will in
fact pay a fair price ( at approx 4mb for a 128k tune @ .03 per mb .12 cents is really
cheap ) to be legal and compete effectively with free ??
” For those who CAN’t afford to pay or are to young to have a credit card or paypal account ect. ad supported free is a good alternative. ”
There will always be those who won’t pay, for a LOT of different reasons.
You are trying to use their ‘download equals lost sale’ doctrine .. again ..
which simply is not true.
No matter what model is in place, some will never pay, and no one can make them.
The question is simple, and has nothing to do with ad supported blather rimita roh.
Simple and in two parts ..
1. Doesn’t the incredible financial success of the allofmp3 model prove that people will in
fact pay a fair price ( at approx 4mb for a 128k tune @ .03 per mb .12 cents is really
cheap ) to be legal and compete effectively with free ??
2. Why will the labels themselves avoid using a proven, wildly successful model.
Answer the question.
It really is a yes or no question
January 30th, 2008 at 10:15 am
He won’t answer because you’re right, and the answer is yes.
look at the difference between 99c per track and 12c per track.
considering how little goes to the artists anyway whicn one do you
think appeals more to the labels ?
They would rather have a trickle a 99, than a flood at 12.
kind of stupid IMHO
January 30th, 2008 at 10:27 am
1. Doesn’t the incredible financial success of the allofmp3 model prove that people will in
fact pay a fair price ( at approx 4mb for a 128k tune @ .03 per mb .12 cents is really
cheap ) to be legal and compete effectively with free ??
>>>Yes!
2. Why will the labels themselves avoid using a proven, wildly successful model.
I don’t know. Logic would be volume would make up for low price and the casual P2p’er might be willing to pay 2.50 - 3.00 for a complete album instead of 9.99
I still fell ad supported is a vialble alternative to those who won’t/can’t pay.
For a song or band I have never heard of why not look at an ad and then hear the whole song
rather than buy it no matter how cheap if I end up not wanting it? save my money to buy stuff i want and like and want to keep!
Answer the question.
It really is a yes or no question
January 30th, 2008 at 10:32 am
” >>>Yes! ”
Thank you.
” I don’t know. Logic would be volume would make up for low price and the casual P2p’er might be willing to pay 2.50 - 3.00 for a complete album instead of 9.99 ”
Precisely.
” I still fell ad supported is a vialble alternative to those who won’t/can’t pay. ”
And it may surprise you to learn that I agree with you completly on this ..
as an ALTERNATIVE.
The problem is that the labels don’t want models like this as an alternative, they want
it to be the ONLY way to go, with DRM and high prices.
Both systems CAN coexist and prosper, the past success of the systems they sued out of
existence is proof.
Thank you for civil intelligent discussion.