Also at Ars Techica, a look at what exactly happened with Qtrax. You will recall late last January at MIDEM that a new company called Qtrax announced it had made deals with all the major labels to allow free downloading of music—25 million songs’ worth. The service was to be supported by ad sales. The site announced it was open for business and claimed an immediate half-million downloads of its browser software.

The only problem is that the majors immediately said they hadn’t signed a deal yet, and Qtrax had to back down. The story in Ars in so many words makes it clear that the company’s CEO, Allan Klepfisz, was full of crap from the gitgo, though Klepfisz says its still going to go online at some point. From the story:

It’s hard to imagine how a company that spent five years quietly trying to license rights suddenly jumped the gun and launched without those rights, but it happened. Klepfisz admitted that the launch had “issues” but insists that he was blindsided by the labels’ public pronouncements that no deals had yet been done. In his view, the rights had been secured. Only while at MIDEM, in the midst of the launch festivities, did he start to get hints that the labels didn’t see things the same way. And then he learned about a “hitch” in his big plans for Qtrax.

Klepfisz won’t say what the “hitch” was, but it’s clear that the labels weren’t yet fully on board with the Qtrax idea. While Klepfisz talked about a coming relaunch of the service as inevitable, it became clear during his remarks that Qtrax has not, in fact, yet manage[d] to secure those licenses.

Emphasis added. The other interesting tidbit in the story is that Qtrax didn’t really have an ad-supported business plan, either. Here’s the fine print of that free music:

Qtrax wants to be [a] legal method to grab music, but it’s more of a “free as in beer” service than a “free as in speech” one. The Qtrax service requires a user to 1) view ads, 2) deal with specially DRMed files that play only in the Qtrax browser, 3) consent to having playback data tracked and uploaded to Qtrax, 4) not transferring music to a portable device, 5) being online to continually refresh the DRM licenses, and 5) being prepared for upsell opportunities like concert tickets and merchandise.