Today, feel free to download NOTHING. Read the update for this article. It basically says Qtrax can't offer anything at all.

Nicely done.

Danny English, Toronto, Ontario

same here

it always pops up with the answer, 'downloads are coming son.'

the really need to sort it out as they promised to have a libary of 25million songs, but will we be able to download them?

Blaine Gess, Canterbury, Kent

Its about time the public changed thier view that music is free. Anyone who does not work in the recording industry thinks a god given right to abuse a right that was given since the invention of the cassette.
This constant want of free tracks is so damaging and costs the music public of many things. No income from music means less independant record labels to provide the new music we crave so much for. We all know the majors lose money hand over fist, but imagine what it will do for the smaller labels. Today such lumenary labels such as mute, Sanctuary, Beggars and Sub Pop would have never survived under the constant freebie attitude of so called music lovers. Stiop whining about free music and start paying, or at somepoint there will be no new music for you to download. Your contributions pay for the development of new artists. So its a bargain.

Martin Thurston, Greenock,

I´ve tryied the system, and it didn´t worked at all ...
what a shame ...

hope they solve the problem, cuz there are no musics for download ...

did they said, 25 milion ???

tsc tsc tsc

PS: was I the only one that have experienced that ??

Mauricio Tadashi, Sao Paulo, Brazil

ihave downloaded qtrax only to find it is unavailable .if you try to log in a zip code is mandatory.what abunch of spanners these yanks are,the question before the zip code one is what country do you live in.

james thomas crossland, wigan , united kingdom

I'll stick with limewire :) My music = free all the time, theres no spyware, and I can burn my music onto a CD.

RIAA has finally lost, so I will celebrate by downloading 25 new songs today :)

Im sorry those overpaid recording artists actually have to try WORKING for a change, but thats the way it goes.

NBLSlider, Tustin, California

Even if the file formats are not compatible with iPods, it is far from difficult (if a little time consuming) to convert the .wma files or whatever they are into mp3s.... this sounds like a monumental day in the music industry's history if this goes to plan!

Jimmy, Bath,

Since the tracks are in undoubtedly in MP3 format they *will* be compatible on iPod's whether Apple wants them to or not.

Matthew Hutton, Oxford, UK

Live reproduction ROCKS!!!

GO TO A CONCERT!

g, gspot/NH, Moon

I go to work, perform a task and get paid, once. The tasks I perform repay my company many times over.

Play live and get paid.

The music business is dead. LONG LIVE MUSIC!

Andy, Charlotte, NC USA

Mozart was poor.

Andy, charlotte, NC USA

i agree with riley. Just hope Apple would be able to come up with an iPod counterpart.

Joe Boxer, San Pablo,

Available (Beta) at 12pm yankee time...........
No real info on Qtrax site, BUT varying info in US press.
Very confused info including ONLY 5 plays per recording and/or an 'invitation' to buy the track after each playing.
American info accessed from links on Qtrax own website.
Are Times reporters able to use the internet?

JDS, Cardiff, Wales

We are so quick to blame the Big Music moguls who have caused so much terror by their shameful behavior towards their customers and the general public. We should keep in mind, though, that they only do that which the laws passed by the sleazy politicians allow them to do.
Ronald

Ronald, Los Angeles, USA

They might as well give it away. There isn't much music today worth buying or even wasting your time to steal.

Lurch956, Soperton, Ga.

Surprised it is free. I thought this would happen with a monthly subscription with access to the latest music and limitless back catalogues, with each record company competing for subscription revenues. Suppose that doesn't circumvent the incredible amount of downloads out there... a brave move.

RobD, Bracknell, UK

Unions have nothing to do with it. Bad business decisiins and ciorporate greed are responsible. Get over the union thing. They have no power.

Agatha, Seminole, FL

It's about time the music industry goes back to its roots. It has only been 60 years since an artist could put out a CD or record then sit back and rake in the cash. Artists will now have to *gasp* perform their music live and on stage! The tragedy! Music is thousands of years old and for nearly all the time it has been around performance has been the main income source for artists. Get over it.

Chris, Lewisville, Texas, USA

people complaining about the apparent lack of songs on Qtrax have forgotten something- it's a beta, which means it WON'T be perfect in its current form. Give it a few months to get out of Beta, then you might actually like it.

James Tudhope, Nuneaton, UK

If any band doesn't know that touring is and will always be where the money is. Just give up now.

This is just another vehicle for the major music labels to control which music you listen to.

Riley Martin, Seattle, WA

Hey Dave from South Bend...When I can shell out $15-20 for a CD and be confident that it is good, then I'll buy CDs....but if someone puts 12 songs on a CD, one is good and the other 11 are utter, uninspired garbage, then downloading from this site is fine. I go to concerts all the time and will happily buy tickets from an artist that puts effort in each track. ...but there is no way I'm going to pay $15 to roll the dice that the CD is worth listening to more than once.

John, Corning, NY

stated below...
"instead of artists making 100 million, they only make 10 million..." what!??? There are only a handful of musicians making that kind of coin...listen, it's the smaller, middle of the road bands that get the shaft, and they make up about 95% of the industry. That means a five piece band that could make $100,000 (20, 000 per member), and make a living doing music ( a crappy living at that)...now only makes about $30,000 and can hardly even stay alive, let alone keep playing music. Keep it in perspective and realize that about 1 in a million musicians is really a millionare...most of them barely scrape by as it is. It's a shame people have such a flippant attitude about stealing peoples jobs away and making it so thousands of musicians have to give up playing because they no longer can make enough money to stay afloat. Ridiculous.

David, South Bend, IN

Regarding Bob Snakeley comment:
"With global warming about to put the city of LA under water when the poles melt and the polar bears go extinct, why not let us have all the music, free? We are all doomed and plus socialism means that these fat cat facists who own things have to learn to share with the people! Socialism and Global Warming...a team to finally defeat the capitalists and all their lackies!"

With all do respect; you are a nut job. If you don't like the freedoms and oportunities the this country gives to every AMERICAN who works hard to enjoy these freedoms our forefathers gave us, then you should consider relocating to a country that shares your beliefs. Here are a few places where you might feel at home: North Korea, Iran, Sudan, China, Russia, Seria, Cuba.

This article had nothing to do with Social/Communist Ideals. Don't impose your sick progressive ideas on us. If you don't like it LEAVE!

Danny, NY, NY

I don't think the record industry is waking up to anything! I am more than happy to pay for music, but not if I can only play it on one device, and is spied on.

Using this service will be useless, who can play QTRAX in their car/mp3 player/hi-fi?
Sure people will crack the DRM, but then you are back at square one, having illegal tracks.

James Hooker, Hampshire,

The problem is too much product. Entrainment in all mediums has reached hyper-inflation. What gives something intrinsic value is it's rarity. Civilization as we have come to know it in the past 100 years or so is on the edge of cataclysmic change.

Jim, NYC, USA

According to this article, none of the big four companies have signed the deals!

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,25642,23121740-5014239,00.html

zoro, Perth, Australia

Sell the CDs for a sensible price and solve the problem. Charge silly money for them and you create a market in bootleg music.

Steve Topliss, Bedford, UK

Record companies should concentate on producing more quality music that people are happy to pay for. Most cds now have 2 or 3 good songs and a load of filler. Artists also seem to deliberately hold back good songs in the hope people will buy the album. Madonna hasn't released the best songs on her last few albums as singles...is this coincidence or a dirty trick?

I prefer to buy really good albums on cd as they are nice to own, but I'm not spending 10 pounds for just one or two good songs, or for something that quickly dates.

Luke, London, UK

So, Adam Sherwin (and others) music is just songs, is that it? string Quartets, sonatas, concerti, madrigals, oratorios, operas, fugues, suites, partitas, motets, masses etc, i.e. the diversity, the wealth of form, everything that has been the stuff of music over 700 years just doesn't exist? Musi is just a faceless magma of songs, songs, songs and more mass-produced songs (for faceless mass-moulded people no doubt?)
This new development is a futher broadside agains culture and a further step to the total robotisation of the pitiful masses we see locked to their ipods, from which the same, identical tinny, impoverished sounds leak out.

Chris P, Epinay, near Paris, France

Bono, Springsteen and all the other nimrods that think we need their thoughts on anything and everything should be glad as they can reach more people with crap music!

Rich Krajewski, Sutton, New Hampshire

> Qtrax files contain Digital Rights Management software...
This is the point I lost interest. I guess a few more years of The Pirate Bay won't hurt.
But when the labels come out of the cold, I'll be ready to forgive.

Benjamin Newman, Sydney, NSW, Australia

"Artists, record companies and publishers will be paid in proportion to the popularity of their music, while also taking a cut of advertising revenues."

If the artists, record companies and publishers are going to get a cut out of the times their music was played then what's going to stop them from playing their own music over and over just to make more money. I see hackers having a field day.

Noel, Austin, USA Texas

Anything infected with DRM is doomed to fail. As for James Blunt, my heart really bleeds for him having to eat baked beans on toast every day, because he has only received several million quid for writing a few annoying songs.

Motivation for making music should be the music, not the money! These people are hardly on the breadline, and the ones that are are obviously not good enough and should do something else with their time, keeping music as a hobby.

Adela, Peterborough,

Personally, I love it.

Ian Penman, London, UK

They've created an Internet radio station that spies on you. All of your musical listening preferences are just one subpoena away from public information. God help you if you've been listening to death metal and are going through a child custody battle. Big Brother wants to watch you.

Thomas Paine, Detroit, MI, USA

What artists fail to realize is the market for their music has changed. I don't mind artists making a fair deal for the music they write but who says all musicians should be millionaires? 17 dollars a CD is over priced so people went elsewhere. The market has changed, charge less for cd' and sales will pick up again. So instead of an artist making 100 million they make 10 million. Still a nice living, and still rich. Oh but then they couldn't buy platinum bathroom fixture for their appearance on MTV cribs. Tired of hearing them cry. I will NEVER buy your cd's again.

Randy, Ellenton, USA, Florida

***What?! Does this mean that James Blunt, Metallica, and other like musicians and music execs will have to sell one of their vacation homes or God forbid not get the most current million dollar Lambhorgini? It's about time. ***

Ya, if they are rich we should be able to steal from them! Wait..that's dumb. Never mind.

Jim C., AC,

Hmmm - so the artists are unhappy with the low state of morals amongst those "stealing' music when for years their lyrics praised all sort of debauchery. I guess the chickens have come home to roost!

Jake, Sparks, USA

I feel amazed by the growing number of people who actually thinks that the money you spent on a cd is given to the artist... Besides the ridiculously tiny amount of the money charged going to the artist, there's still the cd-sold made-up number, which always means more money to the industry and less to the artist.
Good artists don't work just because they'll get paid w/ a big bag of money (instead of mr. James Blunt), as far as I can remember people start bands for the art, for the fun, for the love, perhaps even for the chicks. The only bands which start earning money right away are like backstreet boys or so...

Lint, São Paulo,

It'll have little impact on me and millions like me, because we already have access to free downloads, and without spyware. We select the quality we want - from FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Compression) to MP3 of various bit rates, and despite what people are saying, not ALL MP3 is inferior quality. Yes, it's all compressed, but to varying degrees. My own collection is mostly 320 Kb MP3, and I would defy anyone to discern the dirrerence from that and original CD recording.

Justin Cambershire, Southampton,

A cripled music industry is finally admitting defeat. Of course Qtrax will not work! I'm done with spying softwares and people controlling what I do, listen to, etc. Leave alone the advertising.
Yes the message should be, use Qtrax to save the artists. But the artists don't need saving. The actual message people is going to get now is that..."oh, it seems I can now download without worries! Qtrax? nah. MP3s thank you." The people who buy CDs will continue to buy CDs. The people who download MP3s will continue to download MP3s, now even more. And ilegally, of course.

Daniel, Cambridge,

If this goes down, and if this is truly as non-intrusive as they say and as universally compatible as is claimed, this could be start of one of the biggest milestones in the music industry since the introduction of the vinyl record. It's every pirate's dream poured into a new, profitable, workable and very 21st-century business model. Now we just have to get everyone in on the deal.

Nathan, Franklin, Texas

And what about the other songs on my computer? I have 4000 songs that I uploaded from my own CD's plus live 'bootlegs' that I have collected. When will they decide that my 'license' doesn't cover that music and come after me? I don't trust them.

Joseph Pryor, Cornwall, CT

If there isn't native Linux support, iPod support count me out straight away.

If it's full of ads or poor quality rips - also count me out.

What's sad is that with £3 an album I would spend hundreds of pounds on music. But with £10 an album or with these poor deals - I'm just going to continue to do what I've done for the last year....just not buy or download any music at all.

Phill, Lincoln, Lincolnshire

With global warming about to put the city of LA under water when the poles melt and the polar bears go extinct, why not let us have all the music, free? We are all doomed and plus socialism means that these fat cat facists who own things have to learn to share with the people! Socialism and Global Warming...a team to finally defeat the capitalists and all their lackies!

Bob Snakeley, Kirkland, USA/WA

at least it will encourage , live performances , intead of the boring pop single's which have not even written by the artist making a packet !

emile, london,

What a flop! You can't download anything - Que'lle surprise!!

RockyMen, Manchester, Lancs

So does this mean that EMI and the others in the RIAA will compensate those whose lives they have ruined by lawsuits?

David Neaves, Richardson, Texas

The problem is the service doesn't seem to have gone live. There are many stories about just how far advanced the negotiations with the record labels actually are, with warner denying that there will be any deal, and the others saying the discussions are ongoing.

Colin, Oxford,

Personally, I do not mind paying for music and supporting artists, provided that the price you pay for the music is not exhorbitant (say, 79p a track, while in the US it's equivalent to 50p a track?) and the artists who originally made the music receives the funds they worked to earn. Also, I would much rather have my money going towards developing good music, by quality musicians, rather than funding the exhorbitant salaries of crap artists (like Mariah Carey).

Lisa, London,

If it isn't compatable with iPod then just burn the tracks to CD and then transfer to iPod simple solution, long winded but a way around the issue of compatability!

Terry, Oxford, UK

What?! Does this mean that James Blunt, Metallica, and other like musicians and music execs will have to sell one of their vacation homes or God forbid not get the most current million dollar Lambhorgini? It's about time.

Tyler , Vancouver, WA

Are the copywrite laws nullified?

DL Thompson, Florida, USA

I hope that the tracks can be burnt onto CD, as I don't have an MP3 player and even if I did that's no good for my car stereo, which Is where I listen to a lot of music.

David Leslie, Perth, Scotland

Let's see if the editors publish this thought.....movies are next.

Tracey, Houston , TEXAS USA

I am extremely suspicious of any industry-sanctioned DRM (Digital Rights Management) software since the Sony-BMG rootkit installer which allowed evildoers to hide files using the Sony-BMG protocol. Also, I am suspicious of any peer-to-peer network which may allow two-way access to files on my system if hacked by the evildoers. And I will believe the RIAA when they issue a formal statement of amnesty to all those that they maliciously proscecuted -- even though they knew the people did not have computers or even any desire to download music.

OneCitizenSpeaking, Los Angeles, USA/California

Paul McGuinness is correct, MP3 quality is poor. Good enough for someone walking or running along, or listening to X-Factor winners, but not good for listening to music.

Eddie Reader, birmingham, england

If Microsoft are involved, then expect the QTrax software to deliberately not support Linux. It will be explicitly windows only and will require the latest version and for you to sign you life away with respect to any privacy as to what you download and listen to... all your details will be sold on to others...

paulc, gloucester,

I really suspect that anything which has been "in development" for 5 years is at least 4 years too late. The dynamics affecting the music industry are so fundamental that this type of business model is sure to have little impact. Consumers will only part with money for a range of music-centric offers based on a broader experience. Designing this "experience" is the key.

David da Silva, London, UK

I think it is called Bowie's Law. A few years ago David Bowie figured out that instead of the old practice of keeping down the cost of concert tickets to promote recorded work, artists would reduce the prices of records and the price of concerts would rise. Last year we had artists selling concert tickets at more than £100 each, now music has become free. It seems Bowie was right.

Rob, Cheshire,

This is the biggest con going, its PR stunt to get you to download a lot off them, then in 12 months they will kill the web site making all the DRM music usless in the hope that people we be so dissalusioned by free that will go out and buy to make sure that next time they put that much effort into some thing they get to keep it.

Only every one rembers what happend to play's forsure and the fessco that turned out to be.

Mr W Jones, Liverpool,

DRM = Fail. I want MP3 files, not Qtrax files. And then there's the whole spyware issue. Yeah, let me get some of that filth on my machine, even if it is only for the "innocuous purpose" of letting them know what songs you are playing and deliver you fresh ads.

AstroNerdBoy, Longmont,

Perhaps now the RIAA lawyers will halt their despicable mafia-style intimidation of college students. It has become clear for almost a decade that enforcement of file-sharing is next to impossible, and the music industry is FINALLY waking up and smelling the coffee. It's about time! Now they might be able to actually find new business models that work. Bilking $4000 out of a couple thousand college students is a paltry sum compared to what they could have been making if they had only kept their eyes on the prize. In addition, the RIAA generated a ton of anamosity towards the record labels that they represent.

Baz Lerhman, New York, NY, USA

Ditto,..Neil

There will definitely have to be more constraints w copywrite, if anybody can survive. It's always 'what the market will bare'.

Go figr It's just the latest adjustment.
.

Bob, Slidell, La

For years I have thought the sound quality of Ipods etc. was terrible.

MP3 is a compressed format - it is not the same as CD. You are losing sound quality - I hate listening to my favourite tracks on MP3, the sound just isn't all there.

At last the industry seems likely to address this problem.

ab, quimper, france

The record industry priced the CD's too high. You can buy a movie DVD for less than what they charge for a music CD. They are going down the same route as the American auto due to exorbitant union wages.

bobby boomrang, vancouver, wa

I like and respect James Blunt, and believe he is probably one of the few we should listen to carefully in order to obtain an intelligent as well as a qualified and sensitive evaluation of this new venture. Artists must be protected otherwise the beauty and creativity of all types of music will die.

Snodgrass, Varallo, VC Italy

This is good news and bad news. On the one hand it gives accessiblity to music to a much wider audience and is likely that even more artists (including unknown) will have the opportunity to have their music down loaded which will broaden the overall output of music. But on the down side sound quality is below that of a CD and because it is likely that royalties will be lower, where is the the incentive to produce music in the first place? As neil from Cambridge said touring and performing will be the main music generators, but there only so many venues and far too many artists so this may sort the good from the bad and we may see a much better industry.

Brian Inglis, Bristol,

This is amazing. Could it now be that the public will actually decide what they like instead of choosing what is being spoon fed to them? Expect a lot more garage bands and talented individuals with a descent mixer to get more play time.

I do beleive this will create as many new problems that it solves.

Good luck to ya'll and happy hunting.

Glen, Phoenix,

I wonder when this news will get into our national hero's head Johnny Haliday.

What is incredible here in France is that he takes his own fans to court who currently download his songs...I don't say hits since he only copies himself what other sing.

E. Barker, Toulouse, France

Hmmm....the latest miracle cure from an ailing industry. It will probably go the same way as all the others. I think eventually the music industry will have to face up to the gruesome truth: in the future, there is simply going to be a lot less money to be made from recorded music. Touring and performing will be the key revenue generators.

Neil, Cambridge,