Qtrax, is a new P2P file-sharing, now relaunched as a legal service. Users will get free music, but Qtrax is now ad-supported and the free songs are in the proprietary 'mpq' format that can only be played for limited number of times on the computer to which they were initially downloaded. Each time the track is played, the Qtrax player will offer click-to-buy purchasing and suggest that users pay a flat monthly fee to upgrade to a premium subscription service. This will provide unlimited downloads in Windows Media format which can be transferred to any digital music player except Apple's iPod.
Google Inc.'s YouTube hopes recognition technology will be in place in September to stop the posting of copyrighted videos on the popular Web site, a lawyer Friday told a judge presiding over copyright lawsuits. The lawyer, Philip S. Beck, told U.S. District Judge Louis L. Stanton in Manhattan that YouTube was working "very intensely and cooperating" with major content providers on a video recognition technology as sophisticated as fingerprint technology the FBI uses. He said the company planned to have the technology in place in the fall, "hopefully in September."