Qtrax relaunches with free download service

15:17 | Wednesday April 15, 2009

The company has secured licensing deals with Sony BMG, EMI, Universal and Warner Music. Qtrax’s initial launch was hampered in January 2008 after it claimed to have signed deals with the four major labels: they said no agreement had been reached.

Qtrax 1.0 is currently only available in the US, but will be available in other countries when version 1.1 is complete. Also, version 1.0 can only be used on Windows operating systems and is not compatible with portable MP3 players, including iPods.

Qtrax’s relaunch follows the recent closing down of two other American ad-funded download services. Sprialfrog, previously the largest ad-based download service in North America, shut down in March, while Ruckus, aimed at college students, closed in February.

In the past month, other ad-funded services such as Spotify and We7 have started paid-for subscription services that are free of adverts and agreed tie-ups with paid-for download services as alternative sources of revenue.