25 million songs are now “free and legally” *.

At the Midem music conference in Cannes, Qtrax announced that it had entered into an agreement with all the major music labels and publishers and is launching the world's first free and legal exchange of music files using the p2p protocol. According to the company, 25 million songs will be available for download (compare this with 6 million on iTunes and 3 million on Amazon).

However, under the expression "free and legal" you need to put a big asterisk for clarifying conditions and questions. And they are. Firstly, the music distributed through Qtrax will be downloaded and played through a proprietary player based on Songbird, which at this time will show ads, two-thirds of the proceeds from which will go to copyright holders. Secondly, the music files will be protected by DRM, and, most importantly, will not be played on the iPod. The company claims that “with time” such an opportunity will appear, but how long this period will be, no one can say - it is unlikely Apple will be particularly encouraged by this idea.

Also a big question is the legality of this undertaking. According to an announcement made by Qtrax, the company has entered into an agreement with all the major labels: EMI, SonyBMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. However, at least two of them do not confirm this information. According to the WMG representative, “Warner Music Group did not give the right to use its content in the recently announced Qtrax service.” Also, according to sources close to the Universal Music Group, Qtrax has no agreement with this company, although such negotiations are underway.
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Anyway, everyone can download the player and try to use the new music service at midnight EST (or at 8.00 Moscow time), as written on the Qtrax website. At the moment, only the client program for Windows (XP and Vista) will be available, the version for Mac is promised to be released in March.

via alleyinsider.com

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