Qtrax: Still Vaporware

Qtrax had some “big” news today; they renewed their existing licenses with EMI Music Publishing and Sony/ATV. When I read the news, I went looking for a press release on their site and couldn't find a thing. I'm guessing at this point, Qtrax just wants to launch, and any intermediate steps between their current status and launch are just reminders of how badly their one botched attempt went.

The new-”ish” deal doesn't really help Qtrax in their quest to get up and running; while renewing the deals (some of which lapsed due to timing and others due to a change in the terms of service for the site) does put them a bit closer to their eventual goal of launching a service, they still haven't inked deals with the people they really need to ever supply music. As Engadget points out, the real hang-up here is with content-distribution rights. Most of the original agreements limited the number of plays per person per track, with a pop-up to purchase the track when the limit was reached. With the new “business model” using unlimited tracks, the labels are understandably balking. Anyone who has paid even an iota of attention to the antics of the RIAA should have seen that coming.

Qtrax may want to take advantage of a study by The Wharton School that iLike promoted last month that claims that users of iLike bought 250% more music than they had previously. While I think that Qtrax has mishandled nearly every step of their launch, the reality is that the music industry NEEDS online methods to expose people to more music. Trying to cram the same 10 acts down our throats and expecting everyone to buy those in order to make money isn't a sustainable business model. I do hope that Qtrax is able to pull it out here, because it's going to be companies that expose us to new artists and new music who save the music industry.