Qtrax, the company attempting to get a legit P2P file sharing network (ie one that's approved and licensed by the music companies) off the ground, has announced its first major licensing deal. In a press release released yesterday the company said it had signed a deal with both the recording and publishing bits of the biggest music company in the world, Universal.
Qtrax captured the headlines at the start of the year after holding a press conference at Midem announcing it had all the majors on board. It quickly became apparent they had, in fact, got none on board. It was all a bit embarrassing. But negotiations have continued ever since, and some key indies and some of the major publishing companies - Sony/ATV and EMI Music Publishing - have since confirmed their involvement.
But getting the whole of Universal Music on board is a particular coup, and will probably mean the other three major record companies will follow, eventually. According to Wired, a Windows only pilot of Qtrax is operational with music from US indie TVT Recordings, to which music from Beggars is due to be added soon, while a Mac version should follow shortly afterwards.
To be honest I haven't had chance to check it out myself, and as it won't work on the Mac I'm writing this on I can't go look now. But assuming Qtrax will overcome its Midem embarrassment and get the whole music industry on board, it will be interesting to see how the service works, how the advertising that will fund it is integrated, and how it will compare to pay-per-track and subscription download services, and the other ad-funded operations which are appearing on the scene like SpiralFrog and we7. Also whether a legit licensed P2P service - talked about ever since the original Napster was at is peak - really can take off. Watch this space.