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Broadband & Mobile Featured Article
January 29, 2008
Music Labels Say No Deal with Qtrax
By Raju Shanbhag
TMCnet Contributing Editor
TMCnet Contributing Editor
The free music download service from Qtrax suffered a major setback when the world's biggest music companies, including Warner Music Group Corp and Sony BMG (News - Alert), denied a request to license songs for a free download service launched by the company.
A few days ago, Qtrax had announced that it had deals with the major labels representing about 75 percent of all music sales. The deal would reportedly let the company let its users download songs for free. The new service was to be supported by advertising revenue. But Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner denied this claims. Also, according to a Reuters (News - Alert) report, sources close to Universal Music said it also had not signed a deal for the new Qtrax service and is still in discussions.
As for EMI Group, while it still has an agreement with Qtrax for its song publishing unit, its recorded music arm, EMI Music, does not. In the past, when Qtrax was testing a paid download service, EMI Music, Sony BMG and Warner all had agreements with the company. But the industry sources say that the agreements expired last year and did not cover the new free, ad-supported model now being promoted by Qtrax.
Qtrax, which had earlier claimed that the company had reached an agreement with the major music companies, seemed to be taken aback by the public denials of the major music labels. The company issued a statement where it said, “We are in discussions with Warner Music Group to ensure that the service is licensed and we hope to reach an agreement shortly.”
Qtrax is the latest entry into the long and difficult struggles of startups that offer advertising based free download services. Earlier, social music network Imeem was sued by Warner Music before agreeing on terms with all majors late last year. Although SpiralFrog has managed to sign up Universal Music to its free ad-supported download service, it has failed to sign any other major recording companies to this service.
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Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
A few days ago, Qtrax had announced that it had deals with the major labels representing about 75 percent of all music sales. The deal would reportedly let the company let its users download songs for free. The new service was to be supported by advertising revenue. But Sony BMG Music Entertainment and Warner denied this claims. Also, according to a Reuters (News - Alert) report, sources close to Universal Music said it also had not signed a deal for the new Qtrax service and is still in discussions.
As for EMI Group, while it still has an agreement with Qtrax for its song publishing unit, its recorded music arm, EMI Music, does not. In the past, when Qtrax was testing a paid download service, EMI Music, Sony BMG and Warner all had agreements with the company. But the industry sources say that the agreements expired last year and did not cover the new free, ad-supported model now being promoted by Qtrax.
Qtrax, which had earlier claimed that the company had reached an agreement with the major music companies, seemed to be taken aback by the public denials of the major music labels. The company issued a statement where it said, “We are in discussions with Warner Music Group to ensure that the service is licensed and we hope to reach an agreement shortly.”
Qtrax is the latest entry into the long and difficult struggles of startups that offer advertising based free download services. Earlier, social music network Imeem was sued by Warner Music before agreeing on terms with all majors late last year. Although SpiralFrog has managed to sign up Universal Music to its free ad-supported download service, it has failed to sign any other major recording companies to this service.
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Raju Shanbhag is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To see more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.
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