Universal Music Group is joining the ranks of music companies who are giving away their music for free and in a legal way. The company has announced that it has reached an agreement with file-sharing site Qtrax to offer free, legal downloads of all its digital music. If you would recall, Qtrax announced sometime in January that it has the support of “all major music labels” in its revenue generating ads music download service. But some of this music companies denied Qtrax’s claim, including UMG. Prior to these events, Qtrax was forced to shut down its service a few months after it was launched in 2002 to avoid some legal troubles.

Qtrax, a startup site touted as the world’s first legal and free P2P music file-sharing service with more than 25 million songs in its catalog, has taken a nosedive from revolutionary to a total wreck.

After excessively spending £500,000 or close to $1 million to promote this ad-supported music download service, the company forgot to seal one crucial deal – the support of the record industry. The four major record labels EMI, Warner, Sony BMG and Universal all informed Times Online that there no firmed up agreements with Qtrax. Universal and Warner both confirmed its ongoing negotiations with the startup site.