What I love about this story is that it really sounds like they've hacked FairPlay, and they just expect Apple to say, "Oh, good for you, that's cool."

Klepfisz said the privately held Qtrax will help music companies by allowing fans to achieve a balance between the ease of use of a free P2P service with the need to compensate artists and songwriters music company executives.



Fixed that for 'em.

The article linked here is a different one than the first one I saw, which is here. (new window) And here's the money shot there:

The latest version of Qtrax still lets users tap into file-sharing networks to search for music, but downloads come with copy-protection technology known as digital-rights management, or DRM, to prevent users from burning copies to a CD and calculate how to divvy up advertising sales with labels.

Qtrax downloads can be stored indefinitely on PCs and transferred onto portable music players, however.

The service, which boasts a selection of up to 30 million tracks, also promises that its music downloads will be playable on Apple Inc.'s iPods and Macintosh computers as early as March.

That's unusual, as iPods only playback unrestricted MP3s files or tracks with Apple's proprietary version of DRM, dubbed FairPlay.

"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."

He might as well have ended that with LOL APPLE IS PWNED WE HAX0RED J00 JOBS!!!11111!!!

Do not approve

I'll be counting the days till this launches.

/Yes We Can

Qtrax the new free, legal music sharing site.


Oh phooey! Where's the fun in that?

site is farked

DRM? fark off

Yup... Site is Farked.

LOL at the Midnight, already 1/2 hour later still no link...

Site is on, and still cant download the applciation. Claims 9pm EST. Tis time.

Or is back to more grey area music, more Exotica...

I asked about this a few hours ago in a TFD thread and was called a Spammitter. Grrr.

melancholy_art: DRM? fark off

Not like it's HARD to crack DRM. Audio out > Audio in. Pretty sure there's a way to fake the output hardware so that it actually writes a file.

Qtrax has deals with all four major companies including Vivendi's Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group and EMI Group.

Doesn't seem Universal, EMI, and Warner agree with this statement.

Link (new window)

If it'll play on an iPod, will it still be blocked from being added to a playlist --> burned to CD? If you can burn the files to audio CD via iTunes, I'm in.

/DRM is Satan's work