Qtrax had originally planned to offer up the big labels' tracks through a P2P service, which would theoretically mean that users were able to download a much wider variety of music than the stuff commonly available at digital stores like iTunes (AAPL). That's because QTrax would offer tunes that were officially sanctioned by the majors, as well as "grey" music — stuff that the labels would likely approve, like live tracks, but hadn't gotten around to yet.

But apparently, EMI and UMG aren't too keen on the whole P2P thing. Neither label's music will be available through P2P: Instead the music will come directly from Qtrax's servers.

Which I'm sure won't tax them at all. (Then again, the service may not have enough users for the load to be an issue.)

Would-Be Free Music Service Signs EMI; Two More Majors To Go [Silicon Alley Insider]

Between the money being spent like water, the stock-manipulation allegations, and the CEO's sputtering about being sabotaged and the company's wares really truly working for Macs, this whole thing is starting to seem like the plot for a Rob Schneider movie, in which our (well-meaning, but kinda slow) hero gets duped into being the figurehead for a seemingly legit company's brave foray into the digital-music era. We're at the part of the movie right now where ,the company's seedy, one-step-up-from-penny-stock-spam motivations are coming to light, everything is crashing around Schneider, and the company's founders are in an undisclosed location, sipping mai tais and rolling around in the money they got from their stock price shooting up from four cents to five. How will it all end? Perhaps with another LL Cool J performance!

Qtrax Partying Continues In Cannes, Dollar Figures Bubble [Digital Music News]
Florin Grozea >>> Hi-Q [hiq.ro]

"We are not idiots," he said."We wouldn't have launched the service in front of the whole music industry unless we had secured its backing. We feel we have been unfairly crucified because a competitor tried to damage us. Everyone is very upset."

A competitor? Is he hurling those accusations at the still-croaking ad-supported music site SpiralFrog, or is there another doomed company outfit that's trying to compete with QTrax out there? I'm guessing it'll be a while before we find out the details, given that the QTrax higher-ups don't seem to really be into focusing on the nitty-gritty based on this other quote from Klepfisz:

"As the world's first free and legal P2P service that has chosen to spend 4.5 years on licensing and not to violate IP rights, we have decided that we will provide activation keys shortly upon final execution of all pertinent contracts."

Four and a half years and yet you don't double-check to see if your contracts are signed on your big expensive press-blitzed launch day? I mean, I know the promise of a James Blunt concert could lead some people out there to get distracted by the stars in their eyes, but come on.
QTrax: We're Launching...Someday [Silicon Alley Insider]
Music file-share site Qtrax forced into humiliating U-turn [Times Online]

"Warner Music Group has not authorized the use of our content on Qtrax's recently announced service," WMG spokesman Will Tanous told SAI via e-mail. Universal Music Group, the world's biggest music label, doesn't have a deal with QTrax either but is in talks with the company, says a person familiar with the situation. The LA Times quotes an EMI pr person saying that they're not in either. We haven yet to hear back from Sony-BMG, the fourth big major.

Here's the QTrax response, as of 9:57 pm eastern Sunday night: ""We are in discussion with Warner Music Group to ensure that the service is licensed and we hope to reach an agreement shortly."

QTrax officials had previously said they had deals with all four majors, which would give them access to a catalog at least as big as the 5 million tracks that Apple sells through its iTunes service. But we're told that the service's previous deal with Warner, signed in 2006, expired last year.

Launch delays strike again! Although it's probably not a good sign that they decided to go through with the press blitz despite not having 75% of the major-label population on board. (Didn't anyone learn the lessons of AnywhereCD?) The site's sort of up, although people have been reporting issues with downloading the client to me. (I'm locked out until March 18 at least since I'm on a MacBook.) You can see its inner workings (no download required!) at music.qtrax.com; right now they appear to be offering albums from the labels they're currently squabbling with, although given the delays that I've heard about I wouldn't be surprised if those pages were just placeholders. At least they give you the option of buying digital copies of said albums through their Amazon affiliate links, right? I bet they'll make tens of dollars off those today!

Warner, UMG, EMI: No Deals With Free Music Service QTrax (WMG) [Silicon Alley Insider]

While heralding its easy installation process and ability to snag ringtones from its system, for some reason the QTrax marketing material doesn't mention whether or not the downloadable tracks are copy-protected or set to expire after a certain number of plays. (A New York Times story in April hinted that many songs would "expire" after five plays, and attempts to listen to expired songs would result in users being directed to a purchase page.) I'd test this claim out myself, but—wait for it!—the Mac client won't be ready until mid-March, which leads me to believe that the songs are copy-protected somehow. (SpiralFrog's downloads, for example, expire after 30 days, and they too have the blessing of the major labels.) The QTrax powers that be wouldn't be trying to snooker people into trying the site out and harvesting their e-mail addresses before getting a full feel for its "user experience," would they?

QTrax [Official site]

With a full complement of songs from the major labels as well as the esoteric live recordings and personal tracks stemming from users' own collections, Klepfisz estimates Qtrax will have access to between 20 million and 30 million copyrighted songs at launch in October.

At that size the service could not only be considered a legitimate threat to Apple's iTunes, which only features 5 million songs, but also a better economic proposition as well (record labels collect about 70 cents on each iTunes sale).

That Qtrax has the support of the four major record labels - EMI, SonyBMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group - and all of their respective publishing divisions underscores the industry's increasing realization that peer-to-peer services can't be sued out of existence and instead should be embraced as a potentially lucrative new source of revenue.

We have a lot of questions about QTrax, and they go beyond "Will this thing take off?" (It's too early to tell on that, but we aren't 100% optimistic; after all, a file-sharing application needs actual filesharers to be successful.) Here were a few:

• The phrase "full complement of songs from major labels" stuck out to us—will the entire catalogs of these labels be available on the service, or will the majors first experiment with catalog material and slightly older music as a way to get their feet wet?
• How will, say, the DRM-free offerings that EMI is engaging in right now compete with the QTrax versions of the songs, which will be protected upon first download as a way to encourage purchase—wouldn't it be easier for users to just go to another store that sells restriction-free versions of the tracks?
• These songs from users that go beyond the major-label offerings—how will the service be able to figure out which ones are spoof-tagged major-label tracks, a mainstay of all peer-to-peer services? And what about those live versions of songs, particularly from bands that don't take kindly to soundboard recordings?
• The files—which are allegedly in a format called "MPQ"—aren't all going to be Windows Media, right? If that's the case, seriously, you can just bin this thing right away.

FILE-$HARING [NYP]
Earlier: Music Industry Remains Unclear On "File-Sharing" Concept

Q-Feel - Dancing In Heaven (Orbital Be-Bop) [MP3, link expired]
New Model for Sharing: Free Music With Ads [NYT]