Loading ...Sony BMG doesn’t have a deal with the allegedly legal peer-to-peer service QTrax, either. Which means that the company is zero-for-four as far as deals with the major labels go. For its part, the company’s CEO is spinning away, telling CNet, “It’s true, some of the deals may not be locked in ink, but it’s also true that we had understandings. In some cases, we had endorsements.” Don’t you just love the smell of vaporware in the morning? [Silicon Alley Insider]
 |
Nicole Scherzinger Finally Speaks Out About Getting Fired – Huffington Post |
 SEE: A Look Back At Rihanna's Craziest Looks – Fox News | |
| Guess Which Singer Is Opening Up About Having Serious Vocal Surgery – PopCrush | |
| Ke$ha's Most Outrageous Confession Exposed – Huffington Post | |
| Simon Cowell Sets 'X-Factor' Judge Rumors Straight (VIDEO) – Global Grind | |
| Kanye West's Most Bizarre Requests While On Tour Revealed – PopCrush |
I suspect the source of their woes lies in this sensible but overly ambitious quote from the CEO (taken from the Financial Times):
Allan Klepfiscz, Qtrax chief executive, said: “If you want to entice people from illegal sites, you have to have a comparable offer. Nobody will leave 25m files on Limewire [the largest illegal peer-to-peer site] to go to 1m [on Spiral Frog] or even five or six million [on iTunes].”
See, Allen, here’s the thing: You’re right that the only way to compete with free is to offer nearly as much as the free service does; but the reason no such legal service has yet existed is that licensing that much content legally is head-spinningly difficult. There’s a reason why iTunes “only” has 6 million tracks.
I mean, can you imagine the rights negotiations involved in clearing virtually the entire active catalog of the four majors in under a year? No team of lawyers moves that fast.