Qtrax: Can Advertising Save the Music Industry?

   It seems like music industry has finally thrown in the towel in the online file-sharing war... or is it just the opposite? A new service called Qtrax will offer 25 million songs for legal download. What is more, users can burn the songs to a cd or upload them to their mp3 player (probably not compatible with ipods) with no limit to an individual's number of downloads. The catch: the program will feature "limited amounts of advertising". 

   Over the past decade, consumers have come to expect free downloadable music. With cd sales down, Qutrax certainly seems like the recording industry's last ditch effort to hold onto what money is left to be made in the sale of recorded music. There have been countless devices and services that have emerged and subsequently flopped in the the past decade that promised to save the music industry, but Qtrax seems to be the real deal. Microsoft is an investor, and a program like Qtrax could provide the platform needed for Microsoft to finally take on the ipod. There is a big difference between free unlimited downloads and 99 cent per song.

   With a virtually unlimited selection of legal downloadable songs (Qtrax will include bootlegs and live versions) users will no longer have a reason to risk using programs such as Limewire and Morpheus. Despite their wide use, contemporary and past peer-to-peer sharing programs have many shortcomings that would potentially be solved by a legally regulated service: there is the ever-present danger of viruses, corrupt files, long waits, questionable quality, as well as legal trouble.

   As long as the advertising is not overly intrusive, I believe Qutrax could be the compromise the Napster generation and the Record Industry have been looking for. However, I'll have to see it in action to believe it.