WMG, Universal, EMI and Sony BMG Deny Qtrax Deals plus Commentary
UPDATED: Qtrax’s announcement on Sunday that it was launching its ad supported download service at midnight with music from all four major labels may have been premature or at the very least misleading. Warner, Universal and EMI are denying deals with Qtrax. Only Sony BMG has not commented.
“Warner Music Group has not authorized the use of our content on Qtrax’s recently announced service," WMG spokesman Will Tanous told Silicon Valley Insider. The LA Times is reporting that EMI also has no deal. Sources at Universal Music Group say they have no agreement with QTrax either, but is "very, very close to one".
Now Sony BMG has joined the other services in saying it does not have a deal with Qtrax, according to a source.
COMMENTARY: If Qtrax chooses to launch – as thy now say they will – content from WMG, EMI, Universal and Sony BMG, it could find itself in legal hot water. But this strategy has been used in recent months by several music 2.0 services who have used major label content to build an audience and leveraged that audience into funding and deals with the labels. Stay tuned…
MORE: The latest on the Qtrax launch
“But this strategy has been used in recent months by several music 2.0 services who have used major label content to build an audience and leveraged that audience into funding and deals with the labels.”
The only company that really did this recently has been imeem.com but they had already acquired an audience of 20 million users using their ‘youtube for mp3s’ website by the time Warner got around to suing them. I see this thing as just a load of PR BS to get attention for their service so they can launch something before their cash runs out.