The New York Times has a long profile piece on Qtrax, the ad-supported music downloads company that has spent the last three years struggling to recover from its disastrous launch announcement at Midem 2008. In the interview, CEO Allan Klepfisz says the company now has short-term licensing agreements with Sony Music, EMI and Universal Music, although he admits they will all need to be renewed this year. Qtrax currently has 2.5 million tracks available to download, but hopes to have between 5-10 million by the end of the year. Meanwhile, the company still faces several lawsuits from technology and business partners: “We didn’t have the money” to settle before, says Klepfisz. The company has launched in 11 countries, but its advertising income is not coming from big brand deals, but from Google, Yahoo and other ad networks. Like what you’ve read here? This is just a snippet from our subscription service.
Our subscribers get the most important digital music news and analysis delivered to them every morning and full reports every week plus access to a massive archive of data and previous reports.
For a free two week trial of Music Ally, sign up here. No strings attached – we promise!
Tools: platforms to help you reach new audiences
Tools: Kaiber
In the year or so since its launch, AI startup Kaiber has been making waves,…