Qtrax: No music yet

Correction: I originally posted that Qtrax uses MusicIP. According to a PR representative from that company, Qtrax has no deal with MusicIP--the companies have talked, but no deal has been signed. Apologies for not double-checking all my facts.

I was finally able to get the Qtrax 0.2 beta client, and it's clearly based on Songbird.

The ads work, the downloads don't.

(Credit: Screenshot)

Songbird defies easy summarization: it's an open-source project, based on the Mozilla platform, that intends to ease the creation of digital media apps. The basic app is a straightforward music library organizer and player (some of Songbird's founders worked on Winamp), and Songbird offers resources for developers to create customized versions of this basic player (think APIs, documentation, sample code, a loose license, and so on). It's an intriguing project, but I hadn't seen any compelling reason to download it.

The experience is akin to using a skinned version of Firefox: the "browser" appears in the middle of the screen, and defaults to a Qtrax page that offers featured artists, such as Foo Fighters and Amy Winehouse. Surrounding this screen are various other UI elements, including the all-important advertisements. From the home page, you can register via a link on the upper right-hand side of the page (see screenshot), and once you've confirmed your registration via e-mail, you're ready to use Qtrax's search engine to find songs. These songs aren't stored in any Qtrax database.

Qtrax found my test case, UFO's "Love to Love"--about 10 different versions, in fact--but the download button gave me an disappointing but not surprising message that downloads are coming soon. Apparently until the licensing deals are worked out, there's no there there.

To register with Qtrax, download the client, follow a download link from the front page, and follow the "Register" link from the upper-right hand corner. But once you've done that, you'll still be waiting for downloads to be enabled.

(Credit: Screenshot)

[Kevhouse0308]

Cool, but why does it show stats for downloads if you cant download yet? It shows 13 on "On Rainy Afternoons", 8 on "Who Did You Think I Was" and 9 on "Rock and Roll".

[szyzyg]

For an hour last night I tried to download and play something from Q-Trax, but I kept hitting errors or dead ends. In the end I did figure out a foolproof way to discover and play new music -
1) Open a new tab on the q-Trax browser
2) type in http://www.imeem.com and go to a site which actually has deals with record labels.

[anderscl]

I can't register. I click the "register" link, and a blank page loads, with the name of the javascript function that presumably runs the registration script; but, it's just a blank white page, in a separate tab, with nothing further.

[balgus]

I ran into the same problem with registering but found a way around it. If you open IE or firefox and go to music.qtrax.com it takes you to the same page displayed in the qtrax software. From there you should be able to register just fine. Whether or not you want to bother with doing this, since there are no downloads available at this time, is up to you.

[rainbowindark]

So can anyone dowload music yet ? I've had no luck

[SamTMV]

Some more developments on this story regarding some unsettling law suits against Qtrax...
Read More Here...
http://www.themusicvoid.com/?p=353#more-353