After last.fm, the 4 big music labels (EMI, Sony BMG, Warner, Universal) are supporting a new service. This one is called Qtrax and it launches tomorrow. In comparison to similar sites (pandora, imeem, slacker), this one is a p2p network, meaning that users are able to legally download copyrighted music. Sarah Perez wrote an article about the ups and downs of qtrax.

But why would qtrax succeed?

Don’t get me wrong, I find it a step to the right direction but it provides a service users already have (they just have it “illegally”). Using last.fm is for me clear: it is streaming music and is highly community driven. But Qtrax? I think Mashable is right on this one: qtrax will not last.
I’m just a bit skeptical. Maybe RIAA must take even harsher measures to convince the wider public to use such services instead of the sweet torrents.
I don’t know, what do you thing?

Do you have any good reason, why we should prefer Qtrax over all the other services we are used to?
I mean, I have none so far. I’ll think about it and post on the comments if something comes up.

Thanks to Robert Gordon for drawing my attention on imeem.

I love last.fm, yes I do.

It was always a cool service, with a great community and intuitive design. Sure, you could listen only 30secs of commercial tracks, but nonetheless, last.fm was great.

Now it is even greater. Why?

As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website.

Read the full announcement.

EMI, Sony BMG, Warner and Universal are all on board. The concept is, that users are allowed to listen to full length tracks up to 3 times and then are asked to sign up for a new subscribition service.

Although I personally find it sad, that last.fm isn’t printing any money to pay the artists and the labels, I find their approach also really good:

We already have licenses with the various royalty collection societies, but now unsigned artists can put their music on Last.fm and be paid directly for every song played. This helps to level the playing-field—now you can make music, upload it to Last.fm and earn money for each play. If you make music, you can sign up to participate for free. [...] we are paying artists and labels a share of advertising revenue from the website.

Additional information on the subject can also be found in Mashable.