Some new PR for all of the faithful.
The following ran in Billboard today:
Business Matters: Qtrax, Fontana, Slicethepie and more
September 14, 2010 - Digital and Mobile
By Glenn Peoples
Opinion and analysis of the day's music news.
Oracle Goes After Qtrax
-- Legal P2P service Qtrax has a history of not living up to even its own expectations. It has routinely missed launch dates and goes quiet for months at a time. Now, Qtrax is facing a bill for $1.9 million it was supposed to pay long ago. That’s bad news for a company that needs cash for its startup phase.
A Northern California district court has ruled that Oracle can refile its claim against Qtrax for $1.9 million for software licenses Oracle claims has not been paid. Qtrax had filed a motion to set aside the default but was denied by the judge’s September 3 ruling.
“After numerous efforts by Oracle to negotiate with Qtrax,” according to the ruling, “and many failed promises by Qtrax to pay,” Oracle filed the action in July 2009 and served Qtrax in August 2009. Qtrax’s original plea was due on September 8. The company was given an extension but failed to file a response by the October 23, 2009 deadline. In January, months after the court ruled Qtrax to be in default, Oracle told the court a settlement appeared to have been reached. However, Qtrax never responded to Oracle’s proposed settlement sent in January.
In its defense, according to the court’s ruling, Qtrax argued that its failure to respond to the complaint was excusable because of its CEO’s travel schedule (the court called this argument “not compelling”), its limited resources and its belief that the two parties had reached a settlement (which the court noted was “not supported by the record”).
According to a May 2008 press release, Qtrax was using Oracle infrastructure software to provide the scalable IT architecture for its music service. By July 2009, Oracle had accused Qtrax of breech of contract and was seeking a reported $1.8 million. “I feel both Oracle and ourselves will get beyond this,” Qtrax CEO Allan Klepfisz told CNET last year. (CNET)
Of course this is valuable publicity and will certainly come in handy while Klepsy is pitching new investors. I'm sure many of you can see the silver lining.
