QTRAX Locks down all Big Four Music Publishers

[Mumbo Sauce]

Qtrax, the "world's first free, legal P2P service," has signed a deal with music publisher Warner/Chappell, which had been the last of the big four music publishers to hold out on signing a deal. EMI Publishing and Sony/ATV signed with Qtrax in early March and Universal signed earlier this month, meaning that as of today Qtrax has deals with every major music publisher in the world. A spokeswoman for Warner/Chappell confirmed that the deal was signed.

Although this is a significant milestone for Qtrax, the company still needs more label deals in order to put these publisher deals into effect. So far, only Universal Music Group, TVT Records and Beggars have signed on, so Qtrax still has a fair amount of work cut out for it label-wise. TVT's music is already downloadable, while Universal's is still being added. A spokeswoman for Qtrax said the Beggars catalog, consisting of over a thousand indie labels, will start showing up in about a week.

But the deal brings the company one step closer to its stated goal of offering legal, ad-supported, DRM-ed P2P file sharing of the estimated 25 million songs currently available on the world's file sharing networks. All four major labels have signed deals with imeem and Last.fm to allow them to offer free, on-demand streaming. The next phase could be licensing P2P -- a moment that cannot come too soon for Qtrax, which has been trying to offer this service for over seven years. Limewire is said to be pursuing a similar strategy.

Full Story:
http://blog.wired.com/music/2008/05/qtrax-signs-wit.html