P2P Music Service Qtrax Signs New Licensing Deals

Authored by Mark Hefflinger on March 4, 2008 - 9:29am.

New York - Qtrax, a company developing a free, legal, music file-sharing service, announced on Tuesday that it has signed new licensing deals with Sony/ATV Music Publishing and TVT Records, and extended an existing agreement with EMI Music Publishing. The deals with the music publishers do not immediately give Qtrax the right to offer their repertoire, as the company must also secure licenses from the record labels themselves.

The deal with TVT, a label that filed for bankruptcy last month and filed the majority of its staff, will give Qtrax users the ability to download tracks from artists including Ying Yang Twins, Lil Jon and Sevendust for free.

New York-based Qtrax generated some controversy when it claimed at the MIDEM conference in January that it would launch its service with over 25 million tracks, but later conceded that it had not yet obtained the requisite licenses from the major labels to offer their catalogs.