Qtrax.com which launched two days ago, is the first, free and legal P2P music download application ever. In case you haven’t tried it yet, they contain over 23 million songs in their database, compare to around 3 million for Amazon and 6 million for iTunes. It is so popular that the service is “currently unavailable” (the last time I checked).

Qtrax is free and legal because it has signed all four major music labels: EMI, SonyBMG, Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group. Therefore, they have the right to allow people to download online. Nevertheless, there are a few limitations for this application. First of all, the files downloaded are not compatible with iPod and it?s only played via a player which is built on the Songbird platform. Secondly, it is only support Window at the moment. Most importantly, you will also have to stand with the ads which are displayed during playback and on music devices. It is similar to the Yahoo music player. I suppose it is the way they keep the service free and legal.

[Via Techcrunch, Mashable]