Apparently the
RIAA is done fighting people who have downloaded music illegally, and are now partnered in setting up a new music service called
Qtrax. It's a new kind of P2P software, and there are an alleged 25,000,000 songs you can now download and keep PERMANENTLY - LEGALLY - and best of all,
for FREE. The software will be available to download after midnight tonight.
I imagine they're going to compensate by tracking a great deal of information about people who use the service, and selling that data to anyone they can convince to buy it. If it requires installing some of their software, I imagine what they track will extend far beyond what music you listen to.
I was thinking the same, but also wondering whether or not they would be using some sort of embed for the downloaded music that differentiated it from any other content you might have on your computer, and then threw in some sort of spyware that could report back findings.
Or perhaps I'm just paranoid like that.
"Yeah. If I was going to do that, I have a feeling that I should delete all my mp3's first, because I KNOW they'll be using the software to find out what I have on my computer somehow."
"They will own the songs permanently but will be encouraged to "dock" their player with the store every 30 days so it can gather information on which songs have been played."
If they're gathering information on what songs have been played, they're most likely also gathering information on what songs are new to your mp3 player. They can easily check that against the list of songs you've downloaded from them, and if a song's not on the list, they can hand over your info to the appropriate authorities.
This particular fish smells really bad.
But, yeah. It sounds entirely too easy for them to use the details against the users of the program. And I doubt the average preson would delete the music they already have. If you have a small library, sure, you might. But I know the most I'd delete would be the stuff I don't have CDs for. And I know the RIAA is already wants to go after people who rip their CDs.