Songbird (And Qtrax) Officially Cannot Play Apple's DRMed Music... for Now

Qtrax, the much-hyped free, legal, P2P service with deals with all four major labels, has turned out to be a mirage, at this point anyway. It's still impossible to download music through the service, so Qtrax's creators are urging people to use the software as an audio player until the licensing gets worked out, if ever.

One supposedly-included Qtrax feature is the ability to play DRM-ed music purchased from Apple iTunes. When I tested out the software, my iTunes-purchased music wouldn't play. Some commenters said their iTunes-purchased songs played just fine in Qtrax, so I contacted Songbird, upon which Qtrax is based, to find out what's going on.

A Songbird spokesman responded,

... you're right, something seems to have broken recently in our ability to play Fairplay files. This definitely used to work (recently too, I was able to play in early January), and we're working to diagnose the bug and fix it. But yeah, the intention is that any Songbird with the Quicktime extension installed (and that includes Qtrax) should be able to play Fairplay files once they are authorized and authenticated (via iTunes).

See also:

• Qtrax Claims Major Labels Are Onboard With P2P Music Sharing (Updated)
• Is Qtrax A Stock Scam?
• Qtrax Is Back Up (Updated)
• Qtrax First Look: Nice Interface, but Where Are the Tunes?

(image from macuser)