LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - Like Napster and BitTorrent before it, LTDnetwork's Qtrax is a brand from the early days of peer-to-peer music piracy that is relaunching as a completely legal service.
The reborn version formalized the evolution by announcing a deal with EMI Music to make the music company's catalog available to its users.
Qtrax still allows consumers to get free music, but there will be no free lunch. The service is ad-supported, and the free songs are in a proprietary ".mpq" format that can only be played a limited number of times and only on the computer to which they were downloaded.Additionally, each time a track is played, the Qtrax player offers click-to-buy purchasing.
It also suggests that the user upgrade to a premium subscription service for a flat monthly fee, in which case they get unlimited downloads in Windows Media format that can be moved or transferred to almost any digital music player except Apple's iPod. The songs become unplayable should the subscription lapse.
"Qtrax is going to offer the consumer a pretty cool way to sample and discover music in a way that P2P users are used to," said Ken Parks, EMI's senior vice president for strategy and business development. "The difference is, you'll be presented with stuff that is cleared in a way that respects copyright yet preserving that 'free' experience. You'll not be asked to pay until you want to pull the trigger, so it's a pretty friendly place to explore and discover music."
Financial terms of the EMI deal were not disclosed, but EMI does get a share of advertising revenue generated by Qtrax.
"Advertisers are willing to pay a lot of money to be associated with music, and the music industry is willing to cooperate as long as the value is preserved and the artists get paid," Parks said.
Some of the advertising will be served in way relevant to the results of song searches and will include click-through options to buy products on Shopping.com.
An additional opportunity allows labels to promote artists through spotlight placement on the Web site. EMI is testing the capability internally with such artists as KT Tunstall, Coldplay and Gorillaz.
Parks said that EMI also will get valuable data because it will know every time a song is played and whether that resulted in the consumer making a purchase. That same tracking capability ensures that royalty payments are very accurate, he added.
There is no firm date for Qtrax to launch, though EMI has begun delivering and registering its content with Qtrax's filtering system, powered by Audible Magic. The company has said it is waiting to sign with the other major labels before it goes live to the public and is on schedule to enter a test phase this year.
Qtrax will incorporate community-building and music discovery tools along with incentive programs that provide discounts or additional music plays.
Founded in October 2000, LTDnetwork is a division of Brilliant Technologies Corp. that specializes in technologies, software and services for online retail, advertising, media and marketing companies.
In April, EMI Music announced a separate initiative with Rhythm NewMedia, the first major label agreement to provide videos to an ad-supported mobile service.
Collaborative trials already are under way. The ads are embedded in the on-demand programming similar to television but are highly targeted to individual users.
Source: Various
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