Over the last weekend i had some spare time to improve qmpbackup a little more, the new version:

• Uses blockdev-backup QMP commands instead of the soon to be deprecated drive-backup.
• Adds --compress option: target QCOW files data can be compressed.
• Adds --speed-limit option to limit backup speed throughput.
• Adds --include-raw option so attached raw devices can be backed up too.
• Allows backing up virtual machines in paused or pre-running state.
• Adds backup option copy to allow backing up virtual machines with older qcow image formats, that are not supporting persistent bitmaps.
• Improved logging output.

and some minor code reworks. Hope its useful for someone.