The Position Makers

I came across some wonderful news this weekend. Seems like free music download site Qtrax.com is finally set to release. The basic concept is allowing people to download and share music and charge advertisers for the ad impressions and song downloads, then share the ad revenue with the music labels and musicians (simply, a targeted ad-revenue model). The software is due to release tonight at midnight (EST).

Some history:
Over the past 10 years the Internet has gained traction more than ever before and Peer to Peer (P2P) sharing has increased exponentially. This phenomenon has left the entire music industry on it’s knees. Do you remember the original Napster? The one where you could download all the music you want from others sharing it across the world? That was nice while it lasted, but it was theft and illegal, and the government shut it down. There are still many music sharing sites out there, but they are getting shut down faster and faster.

Qtrax.com:

Qtrax.com is the first company ever to sign deals with major music labels. This is a great sign for the music & internet joining forces. And with “over 25,000,000″ songs, they have the largest selection of music on the Internet. There are some small limitations for now, but they have promised to overcome these in the near future. The major one is not being able to play songs on the Apple iPod. Each song uses Microsoft’s DRM technology, which means they can be played on the Zune.

The company:
Qtrax.com is owned by LTDNetwork, Inc, a division of Brilliant Technologies Corp. (BLLN.PK). Brilliant Technologies doesn’t only build Qtrax.com, they also own several other software suits such as DynaAd, PageQuery Web Service, PageQuery Builder, Free Text Analysis Web Service, intelliChoice, PromoSense, XPeer, and MessageRetriever. Information on each of these services can be found on their website.

My opinion:
Absolutely perfect idea and exactly what the industry needs right now. If Qtrax can handle the deals with the musicians and labels, and generate enough cash from the Advertisers, it WILL revolutionize the Music industry. I am all for it. How could you complain, IT IS FREE. Even better, as a musician, you can MAKE MORE money. Why would you not use the platform? I have no good reason. I am sure they will have the music playing on iPod’s in no time.

Below are some links I have compiled to read more about this.

Company Sites:
http://www.qtrax.com
http://www.qtraxmax.com/information
http://www.ltdnetwork.com/
http://www.blln.net/ (forwarded to ltdnetwork.com)

In recent news:
Major record labels strike deal with online service (LA Times)
Legal file-sharing service touts free music with ads (Reuters)
Major Labels Allow P2P Music Sharing on QTrax (Wired News)

I will continue to write more as I find out about it. For now, I am as excited as one could be.

THANK YOU QTRAX!

UPDATE: Here is the video I found for Qtrax.com: