No, I may not. At Rs.10/- per song surely not!
SareGaMa India Ltd., who hold rights to more than 65% of all the songs recorded in Indian Music Industry, has announced that they will be offering Hindi music online for downloads legally at very competitive rates – as low as Rs. 10 per song.
WOW, Rs. 10/- per song…Do you really think it is cheap?
How much does a normal Audio CD cost you? I suppose it is in the range of Rs.90 to Rs.100 or even lesser. And what are the number of average songs on that one Music CD?… around 15 songs. That turns out to be approximately Rs. 6 to Rs. 7 per song. So how is Rs. 10 per song cheaper than Rs. 6 per song on a normal Audio CD.? Okay, I have done a pretty basic comparison. Online downloads does have a few advantages for sure, but please refrain from saying Rs. 10/- per song as cheap. It is not!
The much realistic question is -why should I pay any money when I am getting my favorite songs free, quite easily. Yes, most of us know that there are hundreds of places on the web where all kinds of music are available for download, illegally. And “illegal download” in India has not attracted too much of attention as it has here in the US.
I will give you my own example. I visited India last year. During my stay I was going to drive long hours along with my friends visiting different places. What better thing to make that travel comfortable than to play some songs with Nasal twang (pun intended). So, one of my friends got some music cds to play during our travel. I asked him about what music he had and he mentioned, “What ever music you want is there on these cds.” To my surprise, he had everything on those 5 cds. It had more than 600 songs of all the hit releases in last 5 years. When asked him about the price, it cost less than Rs 150/-. Now you can do the maths yourself ! They were pirated bollywood mp3 Cds (I guess now a days capr mp3 players are commonplace) that cost him about Rs.30 per mp3 cd containing 150 songs apiece.
(I am in no way suggesting buying or downloading illegaly is right. I personally do not do it and I firmly believe you should not do it too. Please spare a thought for the efforts spent by Music artists, directors and music producers)
According to the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, it is estimated that there are 40 illegal downloads for every one legal download. I assume the rate in India to be much higher, probably 1 legal download in every 100 illegal.
And worst of all is, the traditional way of listening to music itself is changing. This is the age of IPods, Zunes and Iphones. No one listens to the conventional audio systems anymore.
The sales for traditional consumer electronics are going down each passing year. According to me in a decade they will completely vanish.
My simple question to readers is, with all scenario mentioned above, will you buy hindi music online at Rs. 10/- ?
To be frank Indian consumer’s will only buy if you show them any profit or if there’s any advantage like reselling the mp3’s in the IStore. Hope people will get it from the Digital mp3 store
I would easily pay RS10 for the convenience.
– Main issues- saragama’s price is $1 per song in usa – i then rather buy from itunes – better service and quality. I would be willing to pay RS20-RS20 (equivalent) in USA.
– Indeed if SaraGaMa allows reasonably priced downloads (and RS10 is reasonable) many folks will pay and download and this will reduce piracy – not eliminate it, simply reduce it.
I would like to buy good songs online, many a times only couple of songs from an album are worthwhile so I would prefer buying and downloading only those songs (even at 3-4 rupees extra) than buying entire albums…this way I collect and pay only for good songs that I like and not pay more and have too many CDs with more unwanted songs than favorites.
I am going to buy from SareGaMa as there is no other options to buy online in India.
I am going to buy from SareGaMa as there is no other options to buy online in India.
All commendable opinions above. But spare a thought for all those who upload all this music to different web sites, I guess that too is included into the copyright infringement act, i.e. making the copyrighted property avlaible to all without the consent of the auther. So, shouldn’t some action be taken against those first, and then talk about the downloaders.
We have the answer to piracy, the interesting part is with our solution the end consumer can still download it for free, we are working on it and you will come to know when it is out, any suggestions would be helpful.
By the way the project we are working on is “MUSTEM- Must Stop Exploitation Of Musicians”.
thank you
Well I personally believe one must buy music online instead of doing free downloads as u always get a better quality if u buy that. Another reason behind that, there was a comparison given here by somebody that one whole Title CD we get for 90 or 100 Rs. which contains 15 songs, but my issue is that do we like all tracks in that CD or do we even listen to all those tracks? No, we like 2 or 3 tracks in that whole CD and listen to those 2 or 3 tracks only. So, if we buy online we get those 2 or 3 tracks which we like in 20 or 30 bucks then why do we pay 90 or 100 bucks and waste 60 or 70 bucks for rest of the crap in the CD. That really doesn’t make sense to me. Better than that I would buy only tracks I like online and pay for my interests. Thats would also be the part of my Music collection, and collection means good collection which I and others like.
What about Karaoke Tracks? Are they legal. There are a lot of Websites selling them at quite a price.Â
sure….indian consumer will bye music online, the music enthusiasts will be able to find all kind of the music they needed so far….
also its a best way to get quality music…downloads, rather than te free ones
moreover it gives u a sence of satisfaction….and definetly pride
Music should pay the listeners! The artists should be awarded money according to the demand of the music by the public. Sounds strange well it’s being done right not.
FreeiTunespodcast dot com provides money to people to buy iTunes.
You grab or create a ticket, you use the podcast to decode the ticket and receive money via paypal. Indie artists receive exposure and money and the participants simply get paid to divide the money to the artists.
I did a small survey on my website and asked the users a similar question. Like you indicated, my users said that they would not buy music online. They prefer downloading it(Again, i don’t suggest this but this is what they had to say)
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