Finalmente foi lançada uma rede legalizada para download gratuito de músicas via peer-to-peer.

Pra quem não associou o nome à pessoa, lá vai uma micro explicação. Peer-to-peer é aquele mesmo sistema de compartilhamento de arquivos online usado pelo falecido Áudio Galaxy e pelo super pop Emule.

Mas vamos ao que interessa:

Ainda na versão beta (e por isso bastante instável), no  Qtrax é possível encontrar músicas dos catálogos de grandes gravadoras como Sony, EMI e Universal Music. Tudo 100% free.

Como o sistema ainda está em testes, muitas músicas e artistas ainda não estão disponíveis.

É bom lembrar que o serviço ainda não está aberto para o Brasil, portanto se você for lá e baixar algum arquivo, estará incorrendo na ilegalidade tanto quanto se estivesse usando o Torrent.

O que me deixou mais desconfiada foi o lance dos arquivos estarem livres de spywares. Isso é muito difícil hoje em dia.

E esse negócio de não ter nenhum tipo de cobrança escondida nas entrelinhas do contrato de aceitação (aquele que todo mundo clica em “eu concordo)...

Eu sei o que você está pensando.

Que isso tudo é bom demais pra ser verdade.

Se você for como eu, que só se convence lendo outras fontes,  a Wired, a Forbes e o The Guardian estão aí pra não me deixar mentir.

Quando você se convencer de que as coisas estão mudando pra melhor, definitivamente, e pro nosso lado,  faça uma experiência extra-sensorial imaginando como seria a sua vida com o Emule legalizado.

...Sem peso na consciência (já que o artista ficará feliz por ter seu trabalho divulgado mais rapidamente, venderá mais shows e ficará ainda mais milionário);

... Sem se arriscar com a justiça (já que o sistema é totalmente legalizado);

... Sem encheção de saco  (já que toda vez que seu pai assistir uma notícia na TV sobre pirataria, não vai mais lhe dizer aquela frase maldita: “Tá vendo? Você com essa mania de pegar coisa na internet!! Qualquer dia a Policia Federal vai bater aqui na minha porta!!”);

...Sem medo de receber um cavalo de tróia (já que os arquivos estarão livres de vírus e de spywares);  

...Sem raiva (já que ninguém vai mandar música bombada de propósito pra você);

...Sem avareza (já que você não vai ter que pagar pelos arquivos).

É, meu irmão...é o fim do Itunes.

********************

Confessionário

Em 2004 um amigo me sugeriu uma banda totalmente desconhecida. Fui na Livraria Cultura comprar o disco, mas infelizmente eles não tinham recebido nenhum cd dessa banda ainda. Fui na Aky Disco (ou alguma outra genérica, já que a Saraiva Mega só chegou aqui em 2005) e também não encontrei o que queria. Terminei baixando as músicas através do Emule. Ouvi e pirei. Um tempo depois fui à Espanha, onde tive minha primeira experiência comercial com o MUSE, e comprei um DVD e dois CDs – o Hullaballo e o Absolutions – um deles, inclusive foi aquele tal que baixei da internet em 2004. Desde então, não consegui mais parar de gastar dinheiro com o Muse. Lançaram “Black holes and revelations” e eu comprei. Lançaram “Haarp – live in Wembley” e eu comprei. Este mês o MUSE fará três shows no Brasil. Em dois deles eu estarei lá, emocionada e apaixonada. Amor tão grande que nasceu graças às maravilhas da transferência de arquivos via P2P.

Freeconomcs. The idea comes from Chris Anderson, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, who argues it will become the dominant business model of the future. And businesses that don't follow suit won't survive the digital age. "The moment a company's primary expenses become things based in silicon, free becomes not just an option but the inevitable destination," he has said.

Last week the music industry became the latest to join in with the delayed launch of Qtrax, the first 100% free and legal music download service for users in the US.

On Qtrax, millions of songs from artists such as Radiohead and Amy Winehouse can now be downloaded legally for nothing online, with the unprecedented backing of major labels Universal Music Group and EMI. It's a bold strike from the music industry, which will recoup revenue from advertising, to cash in on what is being called the free economy of the future.

By backing Qtrax, the music industry, after years of being stung by illegal free downloads, seems to be plotting a similar flight path towards the land of the free. The site should soon launch in Australia with local offerings such as Missy Higgins and Kylie Minogue. It is one note in what Rolling Stone last month called "Rock's new economy: making money when CDs don't sell". With album sales down 25% since 2000, smart artists and managers were finding new ways to reach fans and make money, such as actively licensing music, touring and merchandise sales at gigs, the magazine said.

Leading artists are already embracing the freeconomy. British band Coldplay has offered free downloads of tracks from new album Viva La Vida — which the band launched with free concerts in London, Barcelona and, tomorrow, New York. For Australian music fans, Minogue's new album X was offered with a free mp3 mix of selected tracks. While Paul Kelly this year began releasing free downloads of his live recordings (this month's offer is five free songs featuring the letter "F").

Specialist free internet search engines contain links to this deal and hundreds more giveaways — from financial advice to nappies. Anderson says that the internet, by reducing marginal costs, has made freeconomics possible and all but compelled businesses that deal in digital to join in an inexorable march to the bottom. "The internet has revolutionised economics," he told The Guardian newspaper last month.

"On the web, the marginal costs of manufacturing and distribution are zero, or close to it. This means that you can now experiment with giving away one thing to sell something else much more than you could in the pre-internet era. Or you can experiment with third-party support, where you give away a product to sell attention to another.

Media consumption, production and distribution are all changing rapidly - as are the media organisations that have to respond to change.

Looks like those lively classroom discussions, started by looking at "new media technologies" in Unit 1 of VCE Media, will continue to well into Unit 2 this year..

The Age has the extended article on 'Freeconomics' here.

La nota dolente è che i file utilizzano il Windows Media digital rights management e possono essere eseguiti solamente tramite il media player Qtrax. Ovviamente scordatevi di trasferire la vostra musica sull’iPod, o su di un qualsiasi altro lettore mp3.
Il servizio è nato da poco, quindi molte canzoni non saranno disponibili per il download e comunque l’archivio non è ancora completo. Il client Qtrax è disponibile per Windows solamente, ma una versione per Mac è in arrivo.

Via / Geekissimo

The faithful tech-followers over at Ars Technica tried the service reporting,

Signup and installation of the client for "the world's first free and legal P2P music download network" went without a hitch. Qtrax is only available in the US for now, and then only on Windows (a Mac client is on its way) at its re-re-relaunch. After getting the company's client up and running, we were surprised by what appears to be yet another false start. Everything in the store works—artist banners are plugged into the main storefront, searching for artists returns respectable results, and advertising is alive and well—but clicking to preview or download a track simply does nothing. The store reported over 6,000 users online during our testing, but we aren't sure if any of them are having better luck than we are.

One of my readers said simply, "they're up and running now," but it was anonymous so I couldn't ask for details, or confirm that they weren't a QTrax plant (which they've been known to do).

When it comes to the Internet and Music, there is no greater authority/asshole than Jasper of Webvomit and since he has a PC, enjoys music and fucks butts, it's best if I just let him tell you about his QTrax Experience.

I have a PC. I have no idea what QTrax is, even though you’ve been whining about it for months. Music downloads? Wait…lemme live blog this.

Ah, “free and legal P2P music download network.” Brilliant.

What bit rate are they distributing their music in? It doesn’t say.

Uh…I have to register and download a Qtrax player? Do Not Want.

And waiting for them to “upload tracks from their record label partners” sounds like they’re not going to have what I’m looking for anyway.

Ok, lemme check my favorite private-tracker bit torrent site. Oh yeah, all that stuff is here — in every format imaginable. FLAC through 192kbps. Wow, they even have Ratatat’s new album already. Does QTrax have that? Hey, two MGMT albums from when they were still in college and called “The Management! Vinyl-only rips from my favorite bands — and that’s all on the front page! Unbelievable!

At this point if anyone wants me to switch from using bit torrent, legal or not, they’re going to have to come over my house and blow me while I download Depeche Mode’s discography…and finish me off during “Personal Jesus”.

But what do I know? I wouldn’t be caught dead using iTunes either.

Sinceramente non sapevo dell'esistenza di Qtrax fino ad oggi. Il programma in questione promette, attraverso reti Peer to Peer, di far scaricare musica gratuitamente e legalmente: come con Downlovers, le etichette discografiche trarranno guadagno dalle pubblicità presenti nel software. A differenza del sito tutto italiano, pare che in questo caso gli annunci pubblicitari siano limitati a semplici banner e non a video decisamente più scomodi; inoltre sembra che Qtrax abbia ora accordi con la maggior parte delle etichette discografiche (Universal, Warner, EMI e Sony BMG), quindi quando sarà attivo al 100% potrà contare su un catalogo veramente immenso. Nel sito ufficiale si danno per già scaricabili Eros Ramazzotti, Feist, Lenny Kravitz, Alicia Keys e Tokio Hotel, ma il problema è proprio riguardo al funzionamento del software: attualmente è disponibile solo per Windows XP e Vista e lo stesso download non parte correttamente. Il lancio ufficiale, perlomeno in America, era previsto per ieri, 18 Giugno, ma ad oggi è ancora disponibile la versione beta: che si sia profilato qualche problema imprevisto?

We are in process of updating Qtrax with a new version and will be back by 2.00 PM EST. You can browse the site during this time but will not be able to login or register. Thank you for your patience.

Assuming they're not in Indiana, and that they actually mean EDT (it's Daylight Time right now), so after 200PM EDT it read:

We are in process of updating Qtrax with a new version and will be back by 4.00 PM EST. You can browse the site during this time but will not be able to login or register. Thank you for your patience.

If anyone with a PC who can read (I know that's a tall order) wants to double-confirm that it would be awesome.

What would also be awesome is if someone told me whether or not QTrax was a delayed April Fool's Joke.

I would have no idea, because i have an Apple, and QTrax isn't available for OSX.

It appears that they've at least heard of Apple. It's okay though, I'm sure they have a plan for the 73% of the portable music market that uses Apple hardware.

You know, other than offering full coverage of their launch.

In the meantime - head over to SAI and laugh some more

*M.I.A. has cancelled her European tour. Possibly to plan her wedding.

*The Times on Lil Wayne: "He often raps about smoking dope and swigging cough syrup."

*Bonaroo has a site set up to help mobile festival goers access info easily. [largehearted boy]

*Fashion(?): Punk rock belts for children. I'll be honest with you. I don't know what punk rock means.

*A collection of goods made out of repurposed vinyl records: bowls, bracelets, coasters.

*More Andrew Kuo stuff from the New York Times: On music festivals.

*Nooka is putting out a glow-in-the-dark watch to celebrate Kanye's Glow in the Dark tour, which is in Minneapolis tonight. [crave]

*One Laptop Per Child: Teaching the world to sing? "TamTam, a piece of software that allows children to create their own music, is central to the OLPC educational mission." [work]

*Remember when Qtrax, the free, legit P2P music site, tried to launch in January and it turned out they didn't have deals with any labels? They're ready to launch again.

*Lily Allen has been posting fairly heavily on her blog lately. Unquestionably frightening, but on the plus side, she makes the listenerd look almost literate.

*Local (kinda): The Hold Steady is streaming their new album, Stay Positive, on their MySpace page. MySpace. Quaint!

Potrei metterla giu così. Che mi sono sposato, che quindi dovevo organizzare il matrimonio, che dopo, giustamente, mi spettava un sacrosanto viaggio di nozze e infine che c'era il jet lag, il lavoro arretrato, un riposino sabbatico. E che, in fondo, il blog è l'ultimo vagone del treno che riparte: niente contratti, niente scadenze, niente stipendio.

Tutto vero. Ma anche. Tendo a impigrirmi. Mi annoio in fretta dei miei giocattoli. Basta un po' di sarcasmo o qualcuno che tende a smontarmi - anche solo con l'ottima intenzione di  farmi tornare sulla terra - che tendo ad essere il primo smantellatore del mio entusiasmo. E' così che rockonomics, la rivoluzione discografica e tutto il resto, da prodromi di una più ampia rivoluzione economica sono diventate banali stronzate. Perlomeno, nella mia testa.

Poi tocco il fondo e mi rialzo. Passo qualche serata ad aggiornarmi nel mio andreottiano archivio di fonti. Prendo appunti. Faccio come con le piante del mio balcone. Che me ne dimentico per un po' e dopo qualche giorno (meglio, settimana) vedo se sono morte o se sono cresciute da sole. E' finita la rivoluzione? E' successo di tutto mentre ero via?

No a entrambe le domande. In questi due mesi - notate come sono elegante: potrei riciclare come novità un sacco di cose e invece ve le do in pasto tutte assieme - è successo che:

1) Nessun nuovo artista o band è entrato nel novero dei rivoluzionari. Si è parlato dei Metallica come di una band che "ci stava pensando" (ma non ci crede nessuno).  O di Tori Amos che ha lasciato la Sony Bmg (o meglio, la Epic Records), è attualmente senza etichetta e sai mai. Voci, comunque. L'impressione è che nel mainstream musicale (o pseudotale) ci sia una sostanziale calma piatta. Se si eccettuano, ovviamente, i soliti. I Nine Inch Nails, tanto per dire, hanno messo gratuitamente a disposizione dei fan il loro nuovo album "The Slip".

2) Nel frattempo Slicethepie, dalla sua nascita, ha già finanziato quattordici album, di cui ben 5 nel solo 2008 (più due a cui mancano veramente pochi soldi per arrivare ai fatidici 15.000 £ di raccolta tra i fan. Non male, no? E dire che ci eravamo esaltati quando ce l'avevano fatta i The Alps...

3) Indovinate un po'? Forse Qtrax non è una bufala. Forse. Nel senso che il free and legal download è ancora un'utopia. Ma pare che i nostri eroi siano effettivamente riusciti a siglare accordi con tre delle quattro major (manca la EMI) e con la mammasantissima delle indie rock Beggars Banquet Records, quella che, per intenerci, ha in mano Matador, 4AD, Rough Trade e XL.

4) Si fa un gran parlare di Muxtape. Pare che ai blogger faccia impazzire questa riproposizione online di quella che in italiano veniva comunemente chiamata "la cassettina". Un giochino interessante non c'è che dire. Ma faccio fatica a coglierne la benchè minima implicazione commerciale o business oriented. Ecco, forse è per questo che fa impazzire i blogger...

The gist of my argument is that to fund legal music downloads with advertising, and make any margin at all, a website would have to sell their ads at about $700CPM, which we can all agree only works if we're talking about pesos.

A gentleman going by the name, "wow, you really are a moron" had the following comments, which I've broken down and explained, in my moronic logic.

did you ever actually use the qtrax service? apparently not, or you have an agenda

A: No, I haven't tried it - as of this posting QTrax is still not available for OSX, despite them using what appears to be an Apple Design Template for their website. Obviously, having your music platform not work for anyone under 30 (Mac Users) is a great way to break into the market. Hey, at least it's unique ... right? Right!

let me give you my calculations. CPM is per imptression NOT per download.

A: This is an excellent point, but if people are coming to the site to download songs, how many more impressions will there be than downloads? Say someone clicks through 10 pages to get to a list of tracks, and then downloads 10 tracks off that page without refreshing? QTrax is still at a 1:1 ratio of Impressions:Downloads.

there are 3 non-intrusive ads per page. that means on a $5 CPM, each page view is 1.5 cents. each time you click on anything on qtrax, new ads are served, another 1.5 cents & so on.

A: Okay, Three ads per page - let's move that ratio to 3:1 Impressions/Download, so now QTrax only needs to sell ads at $233 CPM ... but they've tripled their inventory. You're in the same place.

if qtrax can sign up 10 million users (very conservative, considerung limewire’s 80 million unique monthly visits)

A: The fact that Limeweire has 80M Uniques, is bad for QTrax, not good. That's 80M people who already have a source for all their music, for free, it works on Mac, and has a 10 year head start. However, just to show you how right I am, I'll let you have the 10M users ... hell, let's make it 30M users. The math is the same ...

& each user brings in $10 a year, we have a company earning $100 million.

A: Since I upped the number to 30M users, just to be bold, @ $10/year per user (also assuming QTrax is able to unload all their inventory) you're looking at $300 Million/year. However, the mistake you made was in calling that "Earnings." It's not "Earnings," it's "Sales." Since QTrax is a legal downloading site, they have to pay for those downloads, and even at much less than the $0.70 a label gets from iTunes, I'm guessing each of those 30M users is going to download more than 15 tracks/year. Meaning, QTrax could have 80M users and just lose even more money.

also qtrax can serve targeted ads based on gender, age, geographic location, etc. this will bring high CPM.

A: Who can't?

also qtrax software player is also a browser, so qtrax earns commission from that, similar to the deal firefox has with google, & others. qtrax also sells concert tickets & other artist related merchandise.

A: So you're saying the music downloads are a loss-leader for their search commission and merch sales? I doubt it. I don't have solid numbers on this to back it up, but I'd be willing to bet the Execs at QTrax are planning on their main revenue stream being Advertising.

qtrax actually has an excellent business plan. why don’t you download the software, or at least visit music.qtrax.com to verify a lot of what i’m saying above

A: Again, I can't download the software ... because I have a Macintosh, but don't worry, Macs have nothing to do with Music ... right?

*Vote: Cover vs. Original. Please make sure your voice is heard. This is almost as important as American Idol or Barack vs. Hillary. [mefi]

*Vulture pulls a great quote from Lil Wayne. On staying away from cocaine: "It's just about the acne."

*Sally Forth (the comic strip) references Vampire Weekend. Up next: Garfield eats lasagna off Santogold's belly.

*Imeem is now the top music streaming site, passing AOL and Yahoo. Also, they're opting in to OpenSocial.

*The top 20 superhero songs. [pop candy]

*Songs that are both anti- and pro-drug.

*The Listening Tree: Would you like to hear a tree grow? [good]

*Video: Leonard Cohen, back on stage. Everybody hates it when I try to sing Leonard Cohen. [daily swarm]

*Off topic: Who needs boobs with an ass like this? Sad. But I've read it eight times. [nevenmrgan]

*Note: I am declaring May 14th to be Nicole Eggert day (kinda SFW). Please help spread the word. It's a long story.

Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Coldplay, The Offspring y algunos más comenzaron a regalar su música a través de internet. Esto está acelerando el proceso dentro de las discográficas, a quienes no les queda otro remedio que avanzar con los tiempos.

Muchas bandas novatas se han quejado por ello. Alegan que así será difícil para ellos crecer dentro del panorama musical. Sin embargo, yo digo: ¿qué no es más fácil darse a conocer a todo el mundo mediante internet? Y los millones que sueñan ya llegarán si son buenos, al llenar todos sus conciertos.

Las grandes empresas también se han dado cuenta del asunto, así que empiezan a modificar patrones poco a poco. Por ejemplo, Live Nation es una compañía que se encarga de contratar artistas para encargarse de sus conciertos, su mercancía publicitaria y sus discos. Hasta ahora grandes como U2, Madonna o Jay-Z han firmado con la empresa, y lo que se conseguirá mediante este modelo será reducir los costos de los discos, y enfocarse a ganar dinero mediante las presentaciones en vivo y los artículos promocionales de las bandas.

Otro caso es el del sitio Qtrax, el cual te permite obtener su programa P2P para descargar música gratis y legal, mediante el financiamiento publicitario y los acuerdos con grandes disqueras, como Universal.

Es más, tanto están cambiando las cosas, que ahora hasta los viejitos quejumbrosos de Metallica (quienes hicieron tremendo alegato en contra de Napster, allá por el 2000) planean regalar su próximo álbum.

Yo creo que las modificaciones en la forma de adquirir la música son benéficas para todos: los grandes artistas ya no tienen nada qué perder, los nuevos se dan a conocer y, finalmente, los consumidores tenemos un margen más amplio para elegir lo que nos gusta y lo que no.

Ah, y por cierto, los de Metallica me la pelan.

Una vez relativizado el asunto, pensemos en las ventajas que podría tener que al menos algunos músicos utilicen este esquema: en vez de hacer discos de larga duración con dos o tres buenos sencillos y mucha basura de relleno música de baja calidad, existirían sólo los sencillos buenos (eso ya alguien lo había comentado, no sé si aquí o en otra parte, la edad no me ayuda con las referencias). Por otra parte, los que escuchamos mucha música pero no nos interesa la parafernalia para fans ni creemos de manera mística en los conciertos, veríamos aliviado nuestro bolsillo. Finalmente, esas banditas que se quejan y chillan "porque no vender sus discos les hará más difícil la proyección que se merecen" deben ser los que están en la música por la lana. Yo siempre he creído que los músicos que vale la pena escuchar están en la música, en su gran mayoría, por la música en sí y no por la lana, así que no perdemos nada si los chavitos chillones dicen que ellos nomás no le entran con este esquema (¿te imaginas un mundo musical sin britneys ni timbiriches? sería bonito ¿no?).

Finalmente, para aquellos que quieren hacer resonancia del argumento estúpido de Metallica de que matar el negocio de la música es matar a la música en sí, les recuerdo que música siempre ha habido, y sólo ha sido utilizada como negocio en los últimos 15 siglos (y de hecho, me muerdo la lengua, porque ha de ser un negocio decente desde hace apenas unos 5 siglos, y buen negocio apenas desde principios del siglo XX; antes se malvivía de la música ¡pero qué historias se podían contar por los pueblos!). Creo que liberando a lá música de la carga comercial podríamos ver el surgimiento de muchas propuestas frescas, y la muerte de los "artistas" inflados por los medios. Y esta tendencia podría ser seguida, tal vez, por el cine, la televisión (o su equivalente evolucionado) y los medios informativos. Estamos hablando de la posibilidad de que la información vuelva a fluir sin intereses creados.

Estoy de acuerdo en algo con psmoguel: Los de metallica me la fanfun fifis-fifis.

Me hace pensar en nuevas formas de expresión musical (géneros, intérpretes, ritmos, sonidos). La industria musical ha recuperado, al menos en el contexto nacional, ritmos autóctonos que con nuevas versiones han incluido mezclas de sonidos actuales. Algunos de los resultados son desastrosos (en la mayoría) algunos otros honran la tradición.

…por otro lado una de las ventajas que ha traído ésta era de la globalización es mezclar sonidos de diversas partes del mundo, lo cual hace del viaje musical aún más divertido.

Paradójicamente, aunque producto de la globalización, no caben en la venta globalizada. Claro está que solamente las expresiones de calidad subsisten.

En todo caso, muchos apuestan a que la adquisición por Internet reemplazará a las tiendas de discos, personalmente lo dudo.

Pensemos en México, país de gran piratería, aunque cada vez hay mayor acceso a una computadora con acceso a internet... 10 pesos por disco quemado bajado de Internet…suena atractivo.

Me la pelan.

La actividad de componer música, esa es otra historia. En palabras del inmortal Woody Guthrie:

"This song is Copyrighted in U.S., under Seal of Copyright # 154085, for a period of 28 years, and anybody caught singin it without our permission, will be mighty good friends of ourn, cause we don't give a dern. Publish it. Write it. Sing it. Swing to it. Yodel it. We wrote it, that's all we wanted to do."

"Esta canción tiene reservados los derechos de copia en los EEUU, bajo el sello de Derechos de Copia # 154085, por un periodo de 28 años, y cualquiera que pesquemos cantandola sin nuestro permiso, serán unos nuy buenos cuates nuestros, porque no nos importa un bledo. Publiquenla. Escribanla. Cantenla. Bailenla. Hagan gargaras con ella. Nosotros la escribimos, eso era todo lo que queriamos hacer."

Creo que lo que está pasando más bien es que estamos destruyendo el "nuevo modelo" para regresar al modelo de cientos de años, donde el compositor y el interprete ganan directamente de los que escuchan su música y de sus mecenas, y no hay una "industria" que mantener con sus composiciones. Acabo de ver "Amadeus" y aparentemente Mozart y muchos otros ganaban más de dar clases (eso si, a las hijas de los nobles) que de dar conciertos o ser exitosos en la ópera... Los conciertos y las obras de teatro exitosas les servian para tener prestigio y asi tener pupilas ricas a las cuales educar...

Este asunto de que el mercado como lo conocimos consistía en discos que había que tener a cambio de nuestro dinero y que ahora no hay discos, solo bits que puedes convertir a música si quieres, y esto es sal digital sobre las babosas discográficas, que en su retorcimiento moribundo solo tienen ideas tan idiotas como tratar de controlar esos bits como si fueran átomos. El terrible golpeteo uno-dos que va a llevar a la tumba a la "industria de la comercialización de la música" está formado por los izquierdazos de los artistas que optan por proporcionar el download gratis y los derechazos del rechazo al Manejo de Derechos digitales o DRM por sus siglas en inglés. Aqui me parece apropiado citar, y por tanto citaré a Cory Doctorow, autor de ciencia ficción, cuyos libros estan disponibles de manera gratuita bajo licencia creative commons

DRM: The worst technology idea since the electrified nipple-clamp is "Digital Rights Management," a suite of voodoo products that are supposed to control what you do with information after you lawfully acquire it.

DRM: La peor idea tecnológica desde las pinzas electrificadas para tetillas es la de "Manejo de derechos digitales", un conjunto de productos voodoo que supuestamente controlaran lo que haces con la información despues de que la has adquirido legalmente.

Yo creo que no se trata solamente de tener nuevas formas de adquirir la música, sino que el verdadero punto de flexión es ese "precio: lo que quieras" al cual le podias poner "0" y asi tener tu música gratis. Loas a Radiohead.

http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/05/qtrax-inks-deal.html

It will be interesting to see who actually makes a dent in iTune's grip on the downloading market.

articolo da Macitynet.it

Forse ricorderete qualche mese fa l'annuncio in pompa magna di Qtrax, che millantò di essere sul punto di lanciare un servizio di download musicale gratuito in accordo con le major, per poi fare subito marcia indietro dopo la secca smentita di queste ultime.

Sembra che ora finalmente l'accordo ci sia, almeno con Universal Music Group, che ha ufficialmente riconosciuto di aver stretto un patto con Qtrax per la distribuzione online del suo catalogo musicale. Le modalità non sono ancora state dettagliate, ma Qtrax ha assicurato che tutti i brani che in futuro saranno scaricati "legalmente e gratuitamente".

Gli artisti saranno poi compensati per l'utilizzo delle loro opere; la stessa Qtrax ha fatto sapere che sul portale si potranno acquistare prodotti relativi alla musica scaricabile, sebbene non siano stati diffusi ulteriori dettagli in proposito.

Il servizio Qtrax dovrebbe essere lanciato nel 2008, ma non si sa ancora quando; a questo punto non resta che attendere il lancio di questo importante servizio, che potrebbe rappresentare una svolta nel panorama musicale online. 

Right away we can see a few hurdles for QTrax to overcome such as having to download software to use/play Qtrax music, will it transfer to your iPod? (71% of the market), and finally, "another music website, really, seriously?"

Let's assume, for some reason, that St. Rene Gupil (Patron Saint of Anesthesiologists, and as of right now, Internet Startups) smiles on QTrax and people start downloading by the metric ass-ton of Coldplay (official unit of P2P, denoted MaT/C), that pesky "Math" comes in and spoils the day for QTrax.

Quickly now:

The going rate of impressions on the Internet is all over the place right now (and highly inflated, generally) but for a general interest site like this, let's say they can get $5 CPM (very generous I think). Assuming that people only use QTrax to download songs (to assume anything else would make me an employee of QTrax), then that means that even at that generous CPM, QTrax is bringing in a whopping $0.005/download.

I'm willing to go out on a limb and say that Universal isn't selling their MaT/C for half-of-a-hundredth-of-a-dollar.

So Let's go crazy. Let's say that QTrax sacrifices a few thousand virgins to St. Gupil and they bring in $30 CPM, that's still only $0.03/download. With this model, to get anywhere near what a label makes from iTunes, Amazon, or any other digital retailer QTrax would have to be selling their impressions at $0.70, or $700 CPM - and that's without taking any profit for themselves.

Since I'm assuming that the dudes behind QTrax know basic multiplication, they must be either after a Bubble-VC-Buyout game (scary) or think their "Reviews and Ratings" are going to get significantly (1000x) more impressions than the number of downloads they issue (wrong).

*JEWELRY: The turntable ring. Pretty sure I couldn't pull it off. [red ferret]

*Ice T will perform with the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra.

*To debut at Cannes this month: "It Might Be Loud," a guitar doc that will feature Jack White and Jimmy Page. [the playlist]

*WMG plans on trying true variable rate pricing. (I'm not wholly against it, if it's done right. I know, I know.)

*Prince is writing a book, "21 Nights," based on one of his London concert stands. Will there B 2 many abbrevs 4 me 2 handle? [getty images]

*The Zune: Buy and watch TV shows from NBC, MTV and some others now. [crave]

*Re-blogging (I mentioned this in a previous post): Built for the BBC, the Olinda is a funky-ass radio.

*EVERYONE: listenerd favorites Will.I.Am and Michel Gondry have won WEBBY awards. I don't know what they get for it; possibly a statuette.

*Legal P2P Qtrax, who claimed to have a number of labels on their side several months ago, has apparently finally gotten Universal on their side. [listening post]

*Neil Young, being rich, has a refreshing attitude about the future of music: "The recording business is going somewhere but I don't care about that."

*Talk to the banana: I'm ordering this now. Now now. [laughing squid]

I thought I'd check in with our old friend Qtrax. You may recall them being the website that broke headlines worldwide when they launched a service for downloading free ad-supported music? It was a great idea, fantastic really, except that they hadn't made the deal with the major record labels yet, so... there was no music. The only thing we know about them is that they are incredibly stupid businessfolks in charge of what could be a groundbreaking, industry-altering venture.

That said, I decided to go back and check it out since they've had months to get their shit together, and lo, I was able to sign up and get ready to download FREE MUSIC!!!!

The first thing i searched was Bob Dylan, and I was amazed that the first album that came up is Dylan's "Flower Power"!!! What? You've never heard of flower power? Oh, well, maybe that's because it's not a BOB DYLAN album. It's a compilation that is so bad that not even late night television infomercials would offer it in their selection. It's not real! Whoopty-fuckin-do I can download Dylan's greatest hits, one by one, from bad compilation albums.

DUMB.

Know what's even better? I did try to download something and a warning box popped up that said "downloads coming soon!"

YAAAAYYYY!!!!!

These people should be tarred and feathered.

Nun kam Sony BMG mit dem Vorschlag einer Musikflatrate, von Ihrem eigenen Unternehmen aus wollen sie das ganze bis Ende des Jahres durchsetzten, zusammen mit einem Ipod als Device sogar für unter 10€ den Monat, bislang aber auf Ihre eigenen Produktionen beschränkt.

Für das unlimitierte Abonnement von Musikliedern als normale Variante des Erwerbs sehe ich eine gute und reale Zukunft, so haben sich in den Letzten Jahren vergleichliche Veränderungen auf den Telefon und Internetbereich gezeigt, auch die gerade laufenden Umstiege bei Tv, Videos (z.B. via On-Demand) und Handy zeigen alle positive Ergebnisse.

Wer übrigens immernoch mit Qtrax unterwegs ist, und ab und an versucht einen Track herunterzuladen, den glaube ich Enttäuschen zu müssen, das ganze System diente dank perfekter vorpromotion einzig und allein dem Geldverdienen via Werbeeinblendungen, so hatten sich ganze Scharen von Menschen angemeldet, ohne einen Titel zu bekommen!

It's a start.....

See all Qtrax coverage

Wired

TVT Recently filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, and Qtrax had a failed launch after announcing that they had deals in pace with all four major labels, which the labels subsequently denied.   According to the Wired article, Steve Gottleib, president of TVT told them via email, "TVT has long been a forceful advocate of the ad-supported model," and confirmed that his label has an active deal with Qtrax dating back to nearly two nears ago.

In other news, my boys over at Coffee Shop Mag scored an exclusive one-on-one interview with 50-Cent, in which the rapper talks about his thoughts on declining music sales, and his beef with Yukmouth and Z-Ro.

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.