As we know, music labels do not want us to download music for free. But back in April 2007, a couple of start up companies encouraged the P2P sharing, with programs like SpiralFrog and Ruckus. The reason for the allowance of these programs: advertising. As long as people are willing to deal with a little advertising, they can listen to this music for free. They are aimed towards college students, and I think it is a really good idea.
Qtrax, which opened in September 2007 had signed to sell music from Warner Music Group and EMI Group, and was planning with Sony BMG Music. It started as a file-sharing network in Australia, but was taken down 6 months aft
er. It now runs like a P2P sharing program, in that it gets the music from the Gnutella Network but there are many major differences. You could only listen to the song around 5 times for free, then if you really liked it you could purchase this song. These revenues along with the adversiting put into it, are hoped to be enough to pay off the royalties. Yet still, the music labels are trying to get the users to eventually buy the music, becaus they believe there are too many people getting music for free. They are hoping that Qtrax can compete with illegal programs.
Many of the major labels believe that having a program similar to peer to peer sharing will appeal to illegal downloaders "simply because it works much like the programs they use now".
So at least the industry is trying to think of was to make the "Free the new business model", it is at least digital, and you can try it first for free. WHich may make you want to buy it anyway, to give the Artist a thumbs up on their style. Hopefully the idea with just having the advertisements will lead to completely free music.
3 comments:
Yeah, I agree. I hope ads works well enough so they will finally allow free music downloads. I always get my music for free, but I am at risk. The risk is worth it though, especially when the price is $.99 a song. I really doubt people who use programs like Limewire will switch to a program that is not completely free. It’s good to see they are starting to respect the “Free the new business model” more and more. As long as there is a fee though, I will stick with Limewire and torrents.
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Ryan Wettlaufer
I like the idea of enjoying the music before you buy it, but the thing is most people do not want to buy.Its a good idea and it is worth the try, but i doubt that this will completely take over the people getting their music illegally.
I don't think this is necessarily a bad idea, but I don't see how it could compete with file sharing. If I understand correctly, Qtrax basically lets you preview a track five times if you put up with excessive advertising. Why would P2P users want to switch to that model when they can already download a track and keep it without ads? People who already download music that way can't be too concerned with the legal element, so I don't think legitimacy is a very strong incentive. It seems dumb to target P2P users without giving them any real reason to change.
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