Sorry to disappoint, but
Qtrax is falling just a bit short of its promised 25 million tracks at launch. Qtrax busted out its software in "beta" this evening, but isn't offering a single song -- or even a working music browser. The application is a barely skinned version of the open source Mozilla-based Songbird music player, which has certainly come a long ways since its infancy, and which means Qtrax has done just about nothing for you yet -- other than lie about label deals. When you launch the application it helpfully points you to a placeholder page from a Oracle application server, and that's all you'll be getting until Qtrax manages to get label deals sorted, which isn't looking likely at this point.
Update: 4 hours later and we can see music. About 10 million tracks by their count. However, clicking download results in an error message, "Downloads coming soon!!" How soon, exactly? Would that be after the contracts are signed?
[Thanks to everyone who sent this in]
Read - Qtrax
Read - Music labels say no deal
posted Jan 28th 2008 11:30PM
hello?...investors on line 1...crank call! crank call!
Ares FTW? :)
If they finally cough up music .... ill download it, rip the tracks to DRM free MP3 files... and cram them on my psp
i dont care!
Hmm, why even launch when there is no content? I'm smelling a scam........
haha this is a joke right? and we were almost excited
The music studios pulled the plug at the last second. News story here:
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iyWs82_A8Xu8Uj8ko1R4QxJH5xZgD8UF64F80
Pretty sure it actually said that Qtrax never had the rights to anything. Yay scams.
Me: Where's my 25 million free* tracks!
QT: Uh... we're a little short.
Me: How short?
QT: The whole way...
* Ad supported DRM infested
Rounders FTW
> In your plan, 'A Better Britain For Us', you claimed that you would build 88,000 million, billion houses a year in the Greater London area alone. In fact, you've built only three in the last fifteen years. Are you a bit disappointed with this result?
> No, no. I'd like to answer this question if I may in two ways...
Best movie ever....
I was able to get to the log in page, but the server crashed after that.
First song on QTRX: The Vapors
("Turning Japanese" for those who dont know The Vapors)
I really think so
Has anyone tried the alternative search engines? I'm guessing they're part of Mozilla-based Songbird, but they seem to be giving results. I tried skreemR, which found downloads that kinda resemble something you'd find on limewire. I can't say I trust them though.
Qtrax proposed a new add-supported music distribution system to major music companies. They considered and then refused (EMI is still thinking). How is it vaporware?????
Qtrax proposed a good thing - free music downloads. And you make fun of Qtrax? You must be those future @55ho..s who will join RIAA and MPA board of directors...
The Vapors are a band...
OMG READ PEOPLE
"We're thrilled with the massive response we've received.
To ensure the best user experience, we're activating accounts
in stages. In the meantime, enjoy all the functionalities of the Qtrax
player like importing and playing your music and
searching for artist-related content."
-on download page
I think that engadget jumped the gun on this post, I think that they should give them a chance; as of now the site does come up (slowly). Probably due to the fact that their site has been flooded with people trying to register.
And yes the sight is up, you just had to wait.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/23338827@N08/2227260055/
HEY my account is active.... but I try to download a song BAAM!!
DOWNLOADS COMING SOON!!!
Confirmed...I am in and registering now. Earlier it did nothing for me.
and then....nothing.
RELAXXXX!!!
Go to sleep and try tomorrow..
Amazon.com just sent me an email:
"We've got some recommendations for you! Customers who bought Qtrax also bought Steorn Free-Energy Device."
And Duke Nukem Forever and Maximus keyboard!
They said the same thing about SpiralFrog and look what happened with that...
can somebody tell me, if (a) you can load the tracks onto an mp3 player, and (b) it "phones home" about the number of times you listen to each song, then (c) where are the revenue-supporting ads located? embedded in the songs, either as pictures or audio? who would want that? personally, i won't even subscribe to song podcasts that have station identifiers at the beginning.
"Its new software is designed to let users tap into file-sharing networks to search for music, but downloads are scanned for viruses by Qtrax and embedded with copy-protection technology known as digital-rights management, or DRM, to prevent users from burning copies to a CD and calculate how to divvy up advertising sales with labels, the company said."
DRMd
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iyWs82_A8Xu8Uj8ko1R4QxJH5xZgD8UF64F80
They're just trying to get SkyNet into everyone's PCs. I thought it was obvious?
LOL what a joke LOL, i guess they are scare lol, Dude if they where to release just a single song without the contract that i don't think they will ever get, they will get sue so hard that the Qtrax brand name will have to be sold to a phone company in somalia to make up all the change
lol lol lol
shit dude stop loling or you'll hurt yourself
Rounders FTW
oh my god engadget get it right
BETA IS NOT LAUNCH YOU IDIOTS
Complete, Total, Absolute... BULLSHIT.
This could never work for even a second. Assuming that it is DRM'd to maximum hell, which will be cracked anyways, the labels were never going to go for it.
They are already getting beat to death by iTunes only getting 99c per track. They hate that. They don't make as much money, which is why they make so much fuss about it with Jobs. So its obvious they want competition, and they have already sacrificed DRM to do that.
How on earth can advertising subsidize 99c per track?
It can't.
What advertisement exists, that is worth 99 cents per every set of eyeballs?
It does not exist. Unicorns will start running through Central Park before that happens.
Even being fair and assuming an advertisement delivery system that can deliver more than a couple of ads per track, you still fall far short of 99 cents.
Unless I am missing a couple of major details, there is just not enough money to satisfy Big Entertainment.
To give perspective here:
A 30-second spot during the superbowl could go for 2.6 million dollars on then high end. In 1996 there was an estimated 90.7 million people watching.
That is 86,666$ per second for 90.7 million people. Lets just round that off to 86K for 100 million people. We are talking about 8% of a PENNY per person per second.
Granted the superbowl gets some major draw, but I am just looking at efficiency for your money. That is the high end of the deal. Lets work with that.
At that rate, assuming a song is an average of 3 minutes long, AND assuming they can bombard you with banner advertisements the entire time..... You are paying 7.8c per track being played per user.
For the hell of it, lets just say they ALSO put a 30 second buffer before EACH track played to play another advertisement for you. That still only adds 2.6c to the total.
So there it is. Even with very intrusive advertisements, the advertisers need to subsidize each user at about 10c per track.
Assuming the WHOLE 10c goes to Big Entertainment that is 1/10th of the usual gross per track, and I have no idea what Big Entertainment actually nets from that, but I bet its a lot more then 10c.
Ad-supported music is dead project walking when it has to pay superbowl rates to give an order less profit to the music industry.
QED.
Except they can give you ads every time you listen to the song, while with iTunes they have only chance to get your money.
Duh.
@GKA
Not on the tracks you transfer to your iPOD. They are pushing that as a big feature.
For that matter, how many times are you going to listen to a particular track per day? Especially when there may be a ad-supported delay before it?
Let's work with your observation here. Let's say you have a playlist operating on your system while you are doing something else (not watching the ads of course). A reasonable sized playlist, since everything is FREE, might be ... say .... hundred tracks?
100 tracks * 3.5 minutes gives you 5 hours between loops. So let's just say an 18 hour day is what we are working with. Remember, this is per person. Gotta sleep sometime. So with your observation that puts you at 22.8c per track.
Not that much more is it? But you are right it is MORE.... Thanks for the observation :)
@GKA
Ohhh, and remember this is in Superbowl Advertising costs. Actual advertisements pay far far less on other mediums.
I would hazard to say that the average advertisement online pays much less then that.
So, wait, the ads are actually placed into the audio file before / during the song? Basically like on-demand radio? How is this a BitTorrent killer?
Also, As with all things ad-supported, someone will come around and edit the files. Remember the days of "100% Free* Internet!" with a 400px wide ad bar at the top of your screen? Those companies didn't last very long at all, and I don't think this service has a chance, either.
Even if advertisements cant muster up the funds needed, music companies should still consider it. Whatever they are able to get out of the ads will be better than the big 0 they are getting from P2P networks.
Common, give them a break. It hasn't even been hours after they've launched, they're at BETA and are facing some technical difficulties. Probably they didn't expect so many people or maybe the contract with the labels hasn't been finalized. This is one small step toward free legal music, one giant leap for mankind. At least now we might have more of these popping up and start a new trend.
Kudos to them for taking the initiative to do this.
Oh honestly don't start feeling sorry for them. They've arranged all this uber-hype and started a huge debate. People are going to be intrigued for long enough to download their app, get drawn in from advertisers and they'll have made a mint before anyone realises they've been lying all along.
Once they've made some money they'll start giving away a library of free tunes, but no way will it be the quality service you expected.
Gotta hand it to them though, you'd have thought most people would've learned their lessons being pulled in to all this cr4p by now.
Come on, the people who are honestly complaining about the DRM on FREEEEEEE stuff is kinda ridiculous. If DRM ever existed, I'm happy its going on free stuff. It makes sense for free stuff, NO SENSE for stuff you pay for. I like the idea of DRM when its on FREE stuff.
On the topic of Qtrax though, I must say that it was a great idea. Free music, with drm, but HEY! its free! They should have had the ink dried and laminated before making ANY announcement. Should have had a small private beta then released it globally when it was FINISHED. This whole beta, no songs situation will just hurt it.
You can't be picky when something is free.
I agree.
With all the hype around it, it would seem somewhat prudent to have it ready when it's launched. The whole contract thing and the lack of songs is just going to put people off.
Why launch it when it's not going to do the one things its supposed to be about, even if it is a beta version?
Just seems like bad business sense to me.
Anyway, it won't be long before we can convert all the downloaded files to MP3 and do what we want with them anyway....so it's a moot point.
People can complain about what the hell they like. And why not? It gives the companies a chance to find out why their product is unpopular and, just maybe, come up with something better.
Thanks for the proper punctuation on this. Something gizmodo couldn't do to save their lives. Not that I'd ever encourage AOL to be dicks, but seriously, could you guys some how kill gizmodo? I mean, just like put Brian Lam's head in a meat grinder or something. It'd be a lot of fun!
"Qtrax did not provides users with the codes needed to download music through its software, although users were still able to use other features built into the application, including browsing the Internet and playing media files, the company said Monday."
OMG LOLZ WE CAN BROWSE THE INTERNETS AND PLAY MUSICS!
Um... we could do that for a long time, thank you very much, without their "Beta" software.
At least their ads are free.
The site was up last night, but I didn't bother to do anything with it. Now it won't connect to music.qtrax.com
I agree. I really don't like Gizmodo's style of writing. They write very offensively.
God.. Damn.. Commenting.. System.
If your going to be on Sky News and advertising your free music upcoming service to anyone who'll listen you need to be ready at launch otherwise you deserve all the smart cracks aimed your way.
It sounds like flytunes.fm
This will probably sound like a conspiracy, but all the Songbird software does is scan your system at this point. It sounds like this software is nothing more than a Trojan horse to catalog exactly how mush illegal music people actually have on their systems. Also, a police informant or snitch is also known as a songbird.
I'm actually at Midem at the moment (where they launched), and all of this is amusing me GREATLY. To put it one way, the Qtrax execs are making themselves bloody scarce right now! It's a good job they have offices upstairs, away from the madding crowd - if they had a stand downstairs or on the Riviera level, they'd be being swamped with press and other attendees constantly. This does make me wonder whether it was just a bit of publicity, even if it ostensibly looks like they've made a big miscalculation...
... But if this wasn't deliberate, all this happening in the space of just two days - as cockups go, this was a pretty good one!