QTRAX Hits Snag Before Launching

January 29, 2008

(Long Island, N.Y.) New York based company QTRAX, a new online site aimed in allowing users to legally download free music on the internet through Peer to Peer (P2P) music services made possible by ad-sponsors, had problems just hours after it was announced to be launched at MIDEM, the biggest get-together in the Music Industry Worldwide, in France after Warner Music declared that the company behind QTRAX have not secured a licensing agreement with them.

Immediately following Warner Music’s announcement, EMI Group PLC, Universal Music Group and BMG Music entertainment which forms the so called “Big Four” in the US music industry confirmed that QTRAX had not made any deals with them as well. In an earlier statement, QTRAX claimed that they have already secured arrangements with the aforementioned companies and that a deal was already in place. They also claimed to have over 26,000,000 songs ready to be downloaded legally by using the newest version of Microsoft Windows Media player and is said to be in the process of making these files Ipod Friendly as well.

Qtrax’s president and chief executive Allan Klepfisz says in a short statement that they have already reached deals with the other record labels and music production companies except the Big Four and also acknowledged that a deal with BMG Music, Emi Group, UMC and Warner Music is already in place though the contract is yet to be signed. “With everybody else, we have agreed on all terms, “We are finalizing agreements with the major record labels here at MIDEM. We chose MIDEM to launch so that we could do it with the full awareness of the key players in the music industry,” he emphasized.

The Beta software version of QTRAX for Microsoft was supposed to be launched by midnight of January 28, 2008 while the BETA version for MAC was scheduled to be released on March 8th, 2008. Due to the problems with the recording labels, downloading from the site is currently disabled.

Posted by News LI Editor · Edited by Brianna - Filed Under Technology