O.K., Downloaders, Let’s Try This Song Again

[Scorpio]

O.K., Downloaders, Let’s Try This Song Again
Ozier Muhammad/The New York Times


J. Emilio Flores for The New York Times

The blogger Kevin Cogill wonders if music listeners will want to download songs played only through Qtrax when the trend is to store music in the cloud.

Now Qtrax is back from the dead and — according to its founders — back on track. But what makes them think they can succeed this time?

“What we’re doing is, without question, overly ambitious,” says Allan Klepfisz, an Australian entrepreneur who, along with Lance Ford, a former British rock musician, is restarting Qtrax to much skepticism. Critics point to false starts and missteps in the company’s history and say its plan to make a profit solely through advertising is untenable.

Qtrax’s ambitions may seem quixotic, but it does offer something distinct in the current market: free and legal music downloads.

Mr. Klepfisz says he isn’t trying to compete directly with Internet radio stations like Pandora, Slacker, turntable.fm, iHeartRadio and Radical FM, or with Apple’s iTunes store for paying customers. Instead, he is aiming at the millions of people who now go to pirating sites and other outlets to download songs illegally.

HERE:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/04/bu...downloads.html