Wasn't sure where to post this, so chose "something else"...this is from our Sunday paper... "Death knell for cd's"...A revolutionary online music service offering free song downloads will launch today (Sunday 27th.Jan). Qtrax, a file sharing site funded by advertisers and backed by the pop industry, will initially boast a five million catalogue, similar to iTunes. It's melbourne (Australia) pioneer said the plan is to eventaully deliver about 25 million songs to music lovers. The site is predicted to sound the death knell for cds and a massive challenge to iTunes. Major recording companies, which have traditionally sued file sharing or P2P sites, support Qtrax, who have licensing agreements with EMI, SonyBMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. Qtrax would compensate artists; recording companies will get an equal split of advertising revenue and royalty fees it collects from Qtrax. Artists and record labels were supporting Qtrax to stem a losing fight against "stolen" music.
As the site expands, it will include rare, unreleased and live concert recordings. Punters will be able to access free music after the launch at www.qtrax.com.
I cut down the article a bit, a lot of it wasn't really relevant...but hey, sounds as though they have finally woken up; people, inspite of still paying to go to concerts, buy merchandise etc., will download the music! Hope it's a "good 'un"!!
sounds interesting.. I didn't bother to get the paper today.
launches today? the only thing that makes me wonder is the 'file sharing' site bit. I hope there is no adware involved! :evil:
I'll check it out, thanks melly!!
well, checked it out.
-unlimited downloads
-no adware,spyware,spoofing
-free Peer-2-Peer
-no cost to download and use the software, no hidden costs such as membership, or per-song costs.
sounds too good!!
also, the Band pages have features such as album artwork.!! :smth020
Ripper Rita!! oops...aussie talk heh heh... well, the guy who has been working on it for 8 years, Allen Klepfisz, has promised it will be "revolutionary"... I'm going in to have a look too!!
yaayyy..
i signed up , so that i could be notified once up and running :smth023
here's hoping it will deliver the goods.
if universal are in, then just maybe this is where the new Cure album might be available ?? ;)
:smth069
just checked back on the website.. looks like quite a few glitches now... maybe it won't go ahead just yet?
sounds very interesting....
unfortunately i can't even get the site home page loaded on my browser so i can't see what it is. maybe the server's just overloaded because everyone is trying to view it at the same time or something. but i'll try later.
anyway, very interesting development, finally... although i really hope it's not going to be just mp3s...(?)
Quote from: japanesebaby on January 27, 2008, 10:45:19
sounds very interesting....
unfortunately i can't even get the site home page loaded on my browser so i can't see what it is. maybe the server's just overloaded because everyone is trying to view it at the same time or something. but i'll try later.
anyway, very interesting development, finally... although i really hope it's not going to be just mp3s...(?)
Or AAC's :roll:
oh crap, it's windows only :evil:
*EDIT: ok, forgiven since they are working on it: "Qtrax beta for Mac OS X available March 18!"
so we're waiting..
waiting - for the day when I will crawl away...
just browsed the web a bit and read how they were supposed to launch last october, then june before that, and originally a year ago. so it's been delayed a lot, a lot of people have been waiting for a long time - but it's finally launching now?
Quote from: japanesebaby on January 27, 2008, 10:52:39
oh crap, it's windows only :evil:
i just noticed this info too.. but there is no mention of what format.. I'm guessing it will probably crappy mp3, or maybe wma ? :?
The stuff I can dig up on it quotes "windows media formats" & something called MPQ, which is only playable on the qtrax player (although I guess some 10 yr old will have that cracked in a few minutes).
Only thing is the stuff I've read is quite old, so it may all be different now.
So, if any of our Ozzy friends can fill us in on the avaialable formats, would be much appreciated.
:-D
Quote from: scatcat on January 27, 2008, 10:59:46
but there is no mention of what format.. I'm guessing it will probably crappy mp3, or maybe wma ? :?
just trying to think of some goods sides... even if it were mp3s/other lossy formats, legalized p2p site like this should have a lot of effect on things in a long run. other sites would probably spring up and so on and so on. so in any case i see this as a good sign that the record companies are finally accepting the inevitable (=their defeat against p2p) and starting to wake up and getting off they lazy asses and do something...
another good thing is that if it's got to be lossy formats only, then it's great that it's free - because i never ever understood how anyone would pay for some mp3s anyway! and itunes just can't continue rip people off forever so i'd be happy to see it go down... :roll:
although all that advertising that's bound to be there in order to kepp it running, it's bound to drive anyone insane within 10 minutes i'm sure haha.
oh well, one can't get everything these days, i'm afraid. :?
Well...I signed up for launch update. Seems interesting and fairly easy to use. We'll just have to see once it's launched.
excellent!! If I encounter any probs, I'll give ya a shout out!! :smth100
Considering the launch was supposed to be today.. I really think there is a delay, maybe either technical or legal? As J.B. said, apparently this project has been trying to get lift off for awhile, so who knows? :roll:
it will be up and running from midnight tonight, (Monday 28th Jan) EST. The site has been getting hit so many times, it was experiencing some problems for those trying to just have a look... and if we have to look at advertising, like on the "hotmail" site, just to name one, well, I find that I don't really notice it, and indeed, it may be a small "price to pay" to have a site like qtrax up and running.. I hope it works out for this guy, he's obviously done his "homework", as in no pop ups etc which piss people off.... It's bound to have some glitches in the early days, we will just have to be patient!
Us aussies will post info as soon as we can get to it ourselves!! will be tomorrow sometime..I'll be :smth015 well before midnight..
i just got the LAUNCHED! notice via email some time ago.
since the mac os version isn't up until in march (maybe), maybe some of you pc people can give it a try and write a report... :?:
Quote from: japanesebaby on January 28, 2008, 16:18:07
i just got the LAUNCHED! notice via email some time ago.
since the mac os version isn't up until in march (maybe), maybe some of you pc people can give it a try and write a report... :?:
ya did??? :shock: I just sent an email to them requesting affirmation the site had been officially launched!! :evil:
WHY AM I THE LAST PERSON .... ALWAYS?? :smth012
Quote from: scatcat on January 28, 2008, 16:40:42
Quote from: japanesebaby on January 28, 2008, 16:18:07
i just got the LAUNCHED! notice via email some time ago.
since the mac os version isn't up until in march (maybe), maybe some of you pc people can give it a try and write a report... :?:
ya did??? :shock: I just sent an email to them requesting affirmation the site had been officially launched!! :evil:
WHY AM I THE LAST PERSON .... ALWAYS?? :smth012
are you sure to check it didn't just go to your spam folder or something?
OH F---RUIT!! I've tried to download.. nothing.. :smth100
I did check my spam folder ( pretty high settings here.. but nOOo message!!) :smth011
It's getting late here.. can't see a thing, even with glasses.. I'll try 2morrow..
:evil:
well i wouldn't feel too worried, because if it's launched then it's there and it's not going anywhere anyway. so i don't think it's worth losing a nerve... remember that some of us need to wait until march anyway. ;)
Thanks for the link melly :)
It's a very good idea.
Till i can use it, i'll have to wait up to March 18th :)
went on at 7 am aussie time, still nothing...tried again just now ( 12 noon) still nothing... hmmm..maybe its midnight american time, as when I hit the "contact us", it came up with a NY address...
we couldn't register for the email alert.. so, it's a waiting game now...
Qtrax is being released in "stages", due to the overwhelming response. We have downloaded it, but we haven't been able to access any music yet..probably just getting people to initially get it onto their puter, then the downloads will come on board.. looks ok... had a couple of problems, but you have to expect that in something so new...
Quote from: silversand on January 28, 2008, 23:12:21
Thanks for the link melly :)
It's a very good idea.
Till i can use it, i'll have to wait up to March 18th :)
no problems silversand... hope it works out ok for everyone!
I hope it also that it will work for everyone melly :)
Finally got the thing to download, but I can not find those 25,000,000 they mention. Has anyone managed to download music from it yet? Or at leaast find any music to download? I've searched and searched and found nothing. Guess they are still working out the bugs.
says on "download" page that you can search for music, but not download it at the moment... you can only use it to import what music you already have in your 'puter over to qtrax... I imagine once the downloading of the actual program is complete world wide, the downloading of music will be made available... I think they have been somewhat overwhelmed by the response, which surprises me, but hey, they are "pioneers" here, so hiccups are to be expected...
Quote from: melly on January 30, 2008, 09:46:50
says on "download" page that you can search for music, but not download it at the moment... you can only use it to import what music you already have in your 'puter over to qtrax...
this sounds abit suss to me... :shock: :shock: :twisted:
i still haven't got a response.. I'll try in next few days as i not feel well today to deal with downloading !
I am having a musical orgasm right now!!! :eek:
I wonder if they have rare-er stuff in the gothic/post-punk genre...perhaps some Christian Death or Theatre of Hate??? I've been looking for stuff like that...
Thanks for the link! :)
Okay, noticed on the QTRAX that there are some countries "up and running", Australia not being one of them. So, anyone from US, UK, SPAIN, ITALY,NETHERLANDS, DENMARK, BELGIUM and SWEDEN could you do us all a favour and see if it IS really working now? You have to download it and the addy is www.qtrax.com. It's for Windows only at this stage. Will be interesting to hear from anyone who has success with it.
Thanks!
Well........I searched the Cure and got a list of 100 songs. Songs that I already have. Dunno what the big deal is about this thing. They seem to only offer commercially released songs most of us already have.
I did notice they had some songs from "Dr. Robert's Surgery". But other than that there was nothing special, IMO.
Quote from: iwannashagsimon on April 10, 2008, 11:57:48
I did notice they had some songs from "Dr. Robert's Surgery". But other than that there was nothing special, IMO.
Dr. Robert's Surgery' ?? is this significant? WTF? :shock:
personally, I have given up on this qtrax.com.
seems like all front and no products.. :roll:
Dr. Robert's Surgery is a bootleg CD I think of demos and out-takes.
I also gave up on Qtrax and deleted it from my computer.
thanks for taking a look iwannashagsimon... I guess the "hoopla" surrounding this is the fact that it's legal and free, and there will be kickbacks for the artists etc. I suppose they will only have the commercially released stuff for a while, which is ok for "newbies". They have promised "rare" tracks as well, maybe if enough people request certain tracks, they may include the more hard to get. Seems a bit of a let down though, it's taken so long to get up and running. Oh well, we'll keep it on our puter, see how it goes if and when it's up and running in Oz.