Wired has done a great job of pulling together the highlights from the various panels and speakers from the Digital Music Forum this week in New York. It's really interesting to read each companies viewpoint on the industry today and the direction music is headed. I highly recommend these links.

The State of the Digital Music Union

Social Networks and Music Discovery: What It Means for Music Businesses

Keynote Interview with Thomas Hesse, Sony/BMG

How Will Recording Artists be Discovered in the Digital Age?

Label and Tech Execs On Marketing Music via Social Networks

Today Allen Klepfisz CEO of Qtrax was interviewd by Marty Lafferty, head of the DCIA(a P2P trade group of which Qtrax is a member). He basically points the finger at the media for the botched launch and promises it will be online soon. Here are my two favorite lines....

- Occasionally one can make a miscalculation.  But if a company spends five years on licensing, one can presume that the company has made progress.  I don't want to get into specifics.  Soon enough the world will know which licenses we have.  If we can't get the licenses, there will be time for a second crucifixion.

- It's not an easy road to change fundamentals in the music industry. Thankfully, we have gone down most of that road... We are very very close to the end of this long journey as far as I'm concerned.

If Qtrax is able to pull off what they claim it will be huge but I like everyone else have doubts.  They don't have the best track record going so that second crucifixion will be a total massacre.

Lädt man nun den Client herunter, so stellt man (=1,4 Mio. interessierte User) allerdings schnell fest, dass dieser zwar nicht schlecht ist, dass aber eben keine 25 Millionen Songs im Angebot sind. Im Gegenteil: abspielen kann man die Lieder, die man sowieso schon besitzt, die anderen werden angezeigt, sind aber nicht downloadbar. Wie nun immer der Stand der Gespräche mit den Plattenfirmen ist - 1,4 Mio. User werden garantiert nicht jeden Tag zurückchecken, um zu sehen, ob es nun etwas neues gibt.

Da kann CEO Allen Klepfisz nun schimpfen wie er will und Intrigen vermuten: Fakt ist, dass der Dienst ein lautstarkes Versprechen gegeben hat - und nicht in der Lage ist, dieses einzulösen. Und eigentlich sollte jedem klar sein, dass 1. man so etwas nicht macht, 2. QTrax nie mehr ganz ernst genommen werden wird ('Wer einmal lügt dem glaubt man nicht...') und 3. ein gelungener Startschuss nun wirklich anders aussieht.

Ich schließe mich dem Kollegen Glenn Peoples von coolfer.com an: "File this under How Not To Launch A Product." (Quelle: Coolfer.com)

At the MIDEM conference in Cannes, QTrax announced deals with all of the major music labels and publishers to offer the first free and legal ad-supported P2P service to include major label music. QTrax will have a start-up music library of over 25 million songs which is about four times bigger than iTunes and 100% free.

The songs will be wrapped in Microsoft's Windows Media subscription DRM. Unlike imeem and Last.fm, Qtrax downloads can be stored indefinitely on PCs and transferred onto portable music players.

As of now, the tracks are not compatible with the Apple iPod, but Klepfisz said that the service would be compatible with iPods in March.

"We've had a technical breakthrough which enables us to put songs on an iPod without any interference from FairPlay," said Allan Klepfisz, Qtrax's president and chief executive.

Klepfisz declined to give specifics on how Qtrax will make its audio files compatible with Apple devices, but noted that "Apple has nothing to do with it."

Read The Associate Press article on QTrax here.

Read Wired's review of QTrax here.