qtrax tries it again : ad supported legal p2p

28 January 2008

This is a model that I suggested and supported many years ago. There are many hurdles. Qtrax is having a go at it now. Its a windows/(mac-coming march 18th) P2P application with a built in web browser. It only shows files from labels that qtrax has licensing agreements with. Initially it uses the Gnutella network. It converts the files into an proprietary audio format 'MPQ', adds a windows DRM layer and plays the music only from within the application. It counts the number of track plays, shows ads to earn revenue and pays the artists royalties. Sounds like I won't be using it. http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-midemnet-qtrax-launches-free-music-in-a-blaze-of-questions/