Qtrax, the site which claims to have a catalog of 25 millions tunes for free legal download is up and running, but don’t rush to get free songs because, the service has a little glitch: there is no music to be downloaded or listened.

Despite a flamboyant press event at MIDEM music conference, Qtrax forget to check one “minor” detail: to sign distribution deals with Sony BMG, EMI, Universal Music and Warner Group. As you probably know, without these companies onboard, there is no music.

In a press statement released on Sunday, Qtrax described itself as a free and legitimate peer-to-peer network that will deliver the songs to millions of users under one condition: to play ads while they are listening to the songs.

But the whole PR campaign has turned into a big bubble when Warner Music said loud and clear that it "has not authorized the use of [our] content on Qtrax's recently announced service."

According to Reuters, EMI, Sony BMG and Warner previously had agreements with Qtrax, which was testing a paid music download service, but those deals do not cover the ad-supported music service promoted now by the company.

However, one by one, the other three music studios denied their support for Qtrax. "Sony BMG can confirm it has not signed a deal with Qtrax for the ad-supported service," said a Soy BMG spokesman for Reuters.

Universal Music Group and EMI Group PLC later confirmed they did not have licensing deals in place with Qtrax, noting discussions are ongoing. According to The Times Online, Qtrax spend close to $1 million for its launch event. Apparently, Qtrax also promised that its music downloads will be playable on Apple's iPods and Macs until April 15, but in an interview quoted by AP Klepfisz admitted: “Apple has nothing to do with it”.

Meanwhile, Qtrax has chosen to issue a press statement saying that “its ground-breaking service had approximately 61,000 unique users per hour (between 7am and 1pm EST)”

As for the support the music industry, in the same press statement, Qtrax President and CEO Allan Klepfisz stated: "We believe the exact nature of that support will be publicly clarified within a very short time. As the world's first free and legal P2P service that has chosen to spend 4.5 years on licensing and not to violate IP rights, we have decided that we will provide activation keys shortly upon final execution of all pertinent contracts."

The activation keys are needed for Qtrax web-based player, but the download link from the site is not working.

So, what’s next? After the late PR embarrassment, will Qtrax succeed to convince the big four music studios to license their content? Or, we just witnessed on of the biggest stunts in the nascent history of the digital music for free?