Beggars Group and QTRAX Sign Digital License Contract

Chairman and CEO of QTRAX Allan Klepfisz announced that Beggars Group has signed a digital distribution licensing agreement with QTRAX, the free and legal ad-supported peer-to-peer music network. Beggars Banquet, 4AD, XL Recordings, Rough Trade Records, Mantra Records, Mo'Wax Records, Locked On Records, Matador Records, Too Pure Records and Wiiija are all part of Beggars Group. The labels are distributed by Alternative Distribution Alliance in the United States. (PR)

Warners, Beggars Team On Gig Stream Service

Billboard.biz has learned that a group of industry giants, including Warner Music Entertainment (WME), Warner Music International's video-production arm, is to launch a U.K. Internet-delivered TV service devoted to live concerts. Called the Lovelive Channel and scheduled to launch this year, the service is being jointly developed with U.K. independent-labels company Beggars Group, live-music organizer Mama Group, and the online-video developer Perform Group. (Billboard)

Luddite and paranoid - why the big record labels failed at digital

After hearing from IFPI chairman John Kennedy here this week, you'd expect a very different view of the music business from Martin Mills, chairman of British indie the Beggars Group - and you'd be right. Mills helped create IMPALA, the indies' European trade association, which successfully challenged the Sony BMG merger in 2006, and the proposed Time Warner-EMI merger in 2001. He was awarded an MBE in the New Year's Honours list. (The Register)