There are only two types of music user. Those that make it and those that buy it. There is a notion in existence that if the Major music Industry died, there would be no more music. Wrong!
This will not stop musicians making music and audience buying it. Audiences will just need to do more detective work to find what they want. Radio could help music more too by disgarding their gatekept ideals with the majors and favour more independent music productions. Audience will still buy CD's if they cant download. Perhaps musicians should only sell music at gigs or change the way they sell music to at least try to stem the free download model. Whatever happens - music will not die nor the music industry. Its just changing shape - thanks to technology.

Jake Ward, Oxford, UK

Jim Thirsk:

Of course you want the music to be "free", why shouldn't you? But how in hell do you think any musician should be able to survive if the music is "free"? And the argument about band t-shirts is just so utterly stupid it blows my mind. What if I print t-shirts with the exact same print for a lesser price, then the bands don't get anything anyways.

And for gods sake, nobody over 17 years age buys band t-shirts and coffeecups with "cool" band prints, and of the thousands of artists music i've been listening to in my life i've seen probably 3 of them on stage. I'm quite normal in that aspect.

Keep leeching, but you are not able to do it with a good conscience. Just remember that I who are unvoluntarily paying your cultural "freedom" will someday have my say about things.

David Lonnqvist, Stockholm, Sweden

Why do the labels do this all the time- they negotiate with everyone, make positive noises- accept the pre-paid cheques that are a condition of these types of negotiations. And then inevitably pull the plug at the last minute?

They do it because they live in a parallel universe, one in which P2P doesn’t exist, or what little there is can be prosecuted out of existence.

‘Illegal’ downloads exists to the tune of between 40-100 for every paid for (Nobody knows the exact figures- because by its very nature it is underground). There is now a whole generation that believe that music should be free, that doesn’t mean they don’t buy concert tickets, band paraphania, or for that matter CDs of their favourite bands, but they also load up their MP3s and iPods straight from the P2P networks.

So if the user isn’t going to pay, and the labels still want revenue where do they look? To people who want to talk to the downloaders- and that means advertisers.

Jim, Thirsk, North Yorkshire

There is such a thing as free, you just have to look past your own nose to see it. i have at least 320gig of free things.... music, games, videos... you name it. everything is free, and the funny thing is most of this new stuff is made by younger people, while all the older people sit around tables sueing 8yr old girls! when there are countless millions of people getting absolutly anything media, or pc based for free, and no virus' like the record companys like to make people think.

Your eithter in the know, or not

adam larkin, romford, United kingdom

Don't always blame the record companies – it’s easy to do so. QTrax made the most stupidest error in announcing their service to the world. They managed to do well by raising a lot of money but they got caught up in their own hype.

Its simple business sense to not announce something like this if you haven’t tied up the deals. It’s just bad business and if I was an investor I wouldn’t think too highly of them. In fact, if I was one of the record companies, I wouldn’t use them now either. Perhaps they should have watched the no-hopers on the ‘Dragon’s Den’!

I actually downloaded it on my laptop that I rarely use, and there were no songs available but today I read this article. I guess I’ll stick to buying music – there’s nothing good free in this world – just don’t know why people keep believing that there is! Dear oh dear.

Shahid Miah, London, UK

really feel for them. It sounds like they have jumoed the gun on launching, and have been stung by the record compaines for it.... Or was it that they have negotiated these contraacts with the cleaners at the record companies!

James, Birmingham, UK

Digital Restrictions Management

Steve, London, UK

So the download button is working and when you download it and search for songs and the list is populated, go try and download a song and it says "downloads are coming"...YOU CANT DOWNLOAD A SINGLE SONG!!!

THIS IS UNREAL!

Carl, beverly hills, USA, CA

Am I the only one thinking that this is nothing but a scam from the music industry aimed at testing if a service like Qtrax could be profitable? Would the music industry jump in to a thing like this without being certain about not losing a dollar?

I mean come on, 30 million songs; that's about every song ever produced by major companies in the history of music. Would they give it all that away, and perhaps not succeed, and therefore giving moral alibi to all leechers out there, and the material as well?

By moral alibi I mean that they start listening to leechers demand for free music and disregarding the moral issue about who have the right to set the standard of price, quality and the likes, the leechers or the rightful owners of the intellectual property?

But no matter what, Im curious beyond belief to see what has happened when I wake up tomorrow.

David Lonnqvist, Stockholm, Sweden

In the UK a company called Omnifone has already developed unlimited music to its subscribers through its Music Station phone application and they REALLY have deals with all the labels,

Zara Burdett, London, London

I can't wait to have my fair share of low bitrate and poorly encoded tracks from a selection of musical sewage drizzeling from the gutters that are these labels.

Bobby BigKnuckles, Essex,

How did Adverts destroy TV? TV seems to be doing fine. Ad supported radio seems to be doing well also.

jim, anaheim,

Yes, I would think Google would be fair evidence that online advertising is effective in certain contexts.

Jim, Houston, Texas

What a fantastic idea it was. Nokia are doing the same thing in the summer with their "nokia music store" on the grounds that more and more people are are downloading illegally so the music industry is losing out on money. At least this way the music industry is still getting money, more than if things stay the same.
I hope the plan still goes ahead.

Sam, Milton Keynes,

Just about the only way the music industry can hope to survive in this day and age. But you musn't forget that the big companies such as Sony and EMI are not run by very forward thinking people, as the last twenty years has evidenced, so I'm not expecting any major change in the paradigm until they're literally running themselves into the ground. Nice effort on the part of Qtrax, but time will tell I guess.

Nick, Wilmslow, Cheshire

Stupid idea. Adverts will destroy music as they have destroyed TV.

will, harrogate, uk

This situation seems blindingly obvious to the man on the street.
This would pretty much wipe out pirating, and the big record co's are umm-ing & arr-ing?!?
The longer they delay this flexi-licensing, the more money they will loose to pirates.
Do record lables & artists really need so much money??
Perhaps Jacko, Britney, Winehouse etc would be better if they weren't so stinking rich!

Chris, Ipswich, UK

The problem for me is that the record companies expect to be reimbursed by qtrax. Qtrax gets their money from advertising revenues. Companies pay Qtrax money for adverts. But I never never look at adverts. Does internet advertising actually help sales significantly ?

Barrie, Brussel,

It'll bomb out. As if the ads aren't bad enough, DRM to go with it? Which means crappy low quality wma type tunes also. Nobody would waste their time. Kids aren't even that stupid. Take perfectly good music for free, ruin it, and then offer it to others while you sit back and rake in the cash from sponsors? I don't think so. And on top of that, have Qtrax spy on users to report to the RIAA and sell their personal info? If Qtrax can get it off the Internet so can anyone else. No need to go through 3rd, 4th, & 5th parties.

Sal Lee, Tampa, Fl